Parker 04 - The Fury (4 page)

had taken a shot that nicked his femoral artery while

looking for a family that we believed had abducted a

child. He'd been assigned to desk duty since then, and

I was lucky to have remained on his good side. Though

he hated being off the streets, I think he secretly liked

the attention from the opposite sex. Nothing sexier than

a guy who took a bullet for a good cause. "Anyway, I'm

sorry for your loss, Henry."

"It's not really
my
loss," I said. "The first and only

time I met Stephen Gaines was a few hours ago."

"Well then," Makhoulian said, "if his death isn't your

loss, whose is it?"

"Someone else's," I replied. "Just not mine."

"Somebody cared for this guy," Binks interjected. We

both stared at him. The M.E. was right. Yet as much I

tried to, I still didn't know what to think about every

thing.

The viewing room resembled a typical examining

room, if all the machines and instruments had been

removed. The only thing remaining was a long metal

table. The table was covered by a sheet. Underneath the

sheet was a body, about six feet long. Most likely be

longing to a man named Stephen Gaines. A man who

was presumably my brother.

"Before we begin," Binks said, "be warned that

there's been extensive damage to the cranium."

"Extensive?" I said, looking at Makhoulian.

"That's right," he said. "From the damage, we can

gather that the muzzle of the murder weapon was held

less than a foot from the back of his head, a 9 mm fired

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31

at near point-blank range. The apartment we found him

in wasn't a pretty sight."

"From the wounds," I said.

"Not just that," Makhoulian said. "We found...how

can I put this simply...
paraphernalia.
Pipes, needles.

You name the drug, it looked like Gaines was on it."

I took a deep breath, said, "How old is...was he?"

"Turned thirty a month ago," Makhoulian said. Four

years older than me, I thought. Still a young man.

"He's cleaned up the best we could, but..." Binks

said, his voice trailing off. He knew from the look on

my face that this was best done quickly, with minimal

cushioning. "Anyway, here he is."

Binks leaned over the body, took two folds of cloth

between his hands and gently pulled the cover back until

it stopped just below the corpse's neck. From there I

could see the victim's head. Or at least what was left of

it.

Stephen Gaines was lying on the table faceup. A half

dollar-size hole was blown out of his forehead. I could

see the man's skull and brain, both shredded from the

bullet's impact. His eyes were closed, thankfully.

When that cover came down, I felt like everything

in my body dried up. My insides felt like a black hole,

my heart, lungs, my blood, all of it drained away.

"That's him," I said. "The man I saw on the street."

"This is your brother?" Binks said, eyes raised,

curious more than sympathetic.

"According to the detective here," I said.

Binks nodded, his mouth still open, as though ex

pecting me to relate just how this felt. The truth was I

wasn't sure yet. I'd seen enough corpses, visited enough

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Jason Pinter

morgues to have been able to distance myself for the

most part from the realities of death. A reporter could

go crazy letting each individual horror pile up upon

their psyche. Like a doctor, you couldn't think of blood

as blood, but more a by-product of your work.

"Where'd you say he was found?" I asked.

"Apartment near Tompkins Square Park," the detec

tive said. "Odd place for someone with your brother's

seemingly...limited means to be these days. Twenty

years ago, maybe. But now? That's the heart of Stuy

Town. All young families and old folks."

I nodded, trying unsuccessfully to process this while

staring at the body.

"That's the exit wound we're looking at," Binks said.

"The bullet entered just below the back of the right

parietal bone and exited through the forehead with a

slightly upward trajectory."

Makhoulian took over. "The first entrance wound,

combined with what we know about Mr. Gaines,

suggests that his killer was right-handed and slightly

shorter than him."

I listened to this. "Wait," I said, looking at Makhou

lian. "You said 'first' entrance wound."

Makhoulian eyed Binks. Then he turned back to me.

Binks said, "There was a second entrance wound. It

went right through the occipital bone in the back of

Gaines's skull. That bullet was still lodged in his head

when Gaines was brought here."

"I thought you said he was shot point-blank," I said.

"How can you shoot someone in the head twice from

point-blank range?"

"Only the first wound was delivered from close

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33

range," Binks said, his voice growing softer. His fingers

traced the path of a bullet as he showed where the first

bullet entered Gaines's skull. "The second was delivered

from about four feet away. From a downward trajec

tory."

Binks raised his arm with his forefinger and thumb

cocked like a gun. He pointed it at the floor to demon

strate the likely scenario. He continued, "There were no

muzzle burn or gases expelled from the second shot.

Despite the brain matter, the wound itself is oddly

clean."

"What does that mean?" I said.

"Well," Binks said, scratching his nose with a gloved

hand. "The impact and the trauma suggest the initial

shot was fired from very close range. The brain matter

and impact site..."

"Impact what?" I said.

"It's where the bullet impacts after exiting the body,"

Makhoulian said. "In this case, ballistics found the first

bullet in the wall about six feet off the ground. But they

didn't find the bullet itself."

"So the killer took it," I said.

Makhoulian nodded.

Binks continued. "The entry wound is nearly devoid

of gases or burn marks. Considering the devastation

and the impact site, it has all the marks of a point-blank

shooting. See, normally when a bullet is fired, espe

cially from close range, the wound will leave burn

marks on the flesh, which is literally seared from the

heat. In this case, the burn marks were nearly unde

tectable."

"Why?" I asked.

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Jason Pinter

"My guess?" Binks said. "The killer was using a

silenced weapon. Now, very few guns have those kind

of professional silencers you see in movies, that screw

on like a lightbulb. Usually they're homemade, a length

of aluminum tubing filled with steel wool or fiberglass."

"Forensics is checking for both," Makhoulian added.

"It's not just professionals who use them. Some

hunters use silencers out of season. Even guys in their

backyards shooting beer bottles who don't want their

neighbors to hear. Of course, there's a chance the killer

simply did it the old-fashioned way," Binks said, "and

covered the muzzle with a pillow. The killer didn't need

to be an expert in weaponry. In fact, there's a reason you

see that in the movies. It's not going to dampen the noise

completely, but as a quick fix--"

"Please," I interrupted, pleading to either man.

"Explain to me what the hell all this means."

Makhoulian said, "It means whoever killed your

brother shot him once in the back of the head with a

silenced weapon. Then while he was lying on the

ground, dying, the killer shot him one more time to

finish the job. Your brother wasn't just killed, Henry. He

was executed."

4

I followed Detective Sevi Makhoulian out of the

examiner's office. An unmarked Crown Victoria sat

outside, and Makhoulian approached it. He leaned up

against the door. He took a white handkerchief from his

jacket pocket and wiped his forehead. I stood there

watching him, unsure of what to do. What the next step

was.

"You still haven't told me why you're so convinced

Stephen Gaines is my brother. And even if he is, why

did you call
me?
" I asked. "I barely spoke two words

to Gaines in the entire thirty seconds I knew him. So

again, why me?"

"You weren't our first choice, Henry," Makhoulian

said, pocketing the cloth. "The first person we called

was James Parker, your father. And Stephen's father."

"Wait," I said. "We had the same father?"

The detective nodded with no emotion. "You thought

you were related through osmosis?"

I hadn't had much time to really think about every

thing, to consider what all this meant, but if Makhou

lian was right and Gaines was my brother, we had to

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Jason Pinter

share a parent. And I could never picture my mother

holding on to that kind of secret. There was no way she

could keep that from me.

My father was another story.

From the first time I could think clearly, I recognized

my father was the kind of man, who, if not your blood,

you would go out of your way not to know.

Even as a younger man, he was mean, belittling,

nasty, vicious. Violent.

That man was fifty-five now. In the last twenty years

he'd never held a steady job. Never made enough money

to move out of the house I grew up in, never desired to

give my mother anything more than he had when they

married. If anything, he took much of it away.

He preferred swinging from branch to branch on the

employment tree, always looking for a vocation where

the bosses didn't mind if you showed up late, left early

to drink, and showed no ambition to rise above foot

soldier. Comfort was given highest priority. When I

began to write first for my school paper, then took

various internships before taking a paid job with the

Bend Bulletin,
James Parker approached it like I was up

setting the gods of apathy. And hence upsetting his life.

The harder I worked, the more work came home with

me. My editors and sources would call at all hours of

the night, and because this was before cell phones were

more common than pennies, they would call my

family's landline.

I remember sitting at my desk, the phone resting

inches from my hand while I wrote, my eye always

flickering to the headset, waiting to pick it up the mil

lisecond it rang. The system wasn't foolproof, but it's

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37

the best I could come up with. The trick was to simply

be the first to answer the phone when it rang. The

moment that shrill bell rang, the phone was in my

hands. "Henry Parker," I would say, hoping if the call

was for me, my father would simply leave it alone.

Every now and then I was slow, distracted or in the

shower, and he'd pick up. It meant I had to deal with

hang-ups from sources who were scared off by unrec

ognized voices on the other end. And if, heaven forbid,

someone called during dinner, I could count on James

Parker locking me in the garage. If I was lucky. And if

I wasn't--I had a scar or two to motivate me to quicken

my reaction times.

My mother, Eve Parker, was withdrawn. I hate to say

aloof because that wasn't it, but it seemed as though

she'd been shell-shocked by her husband into a per

petual state of submission. She rarely flinched, just went

through the motions like an automaton who forgot that

at one point she was human. I wondered what she had

been like before she'd met James. If she'd been strong

or vivacious. If she'd hoped to marry the man of her

dreams. Or if somewhere, deep down, she was resigned

to a life married to this thing that called himself a man.

If anything, though, I had to credit James Parker

with making me stronger. He made me work harder,

longer, better, if only to give myself every chance of

getting the hell away from that house. When I was

growing up, I wasn't strong enough, mentally or physi

cally, to stand up to him. Now, I was twice the man he

ever was. And I considered him lucky that his son left

before he could stand up to him the way that he

deserved.

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Jason Pinter

"Wait," I said to Makhoulian. "If Stephen Gaines

and I had the same father...who's Stephen's mother?"

Makhoulian nodded, as though expecting this

question to be asked sooner or later.

"According to the birth certificate, her name is

Helen Gaines."

"I've never heard that name before," I said. "Where

is she?"

"Actually, I was hoping you could tell me," the de

tective said. "All we know about Helen Gaines is that

she was born in Bend, Oregon, in 1960. Her financial

records show that she closed out her bank accounts in

Oregon in 1980, and moved. Where, we don't know."

"So if she was born in 1960, and Stephen Gaines was