The Fall Moon

  THE FALL MOON

  Copyright © 2019 by Blake Banner

  All right reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  EPILOGUE

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY BLAKE BANNER

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  ONE

  “You remember the Redfern case?”

  Dehan spoke to the bacon on her plate as she cut into it, frowning. I leaned back comfortably, holding my coffee cup halfway to my mouth.

  “Sure, it was Bob Lindsey’s case just before he got shot.” I scratched my chin. “Six, seven years ago? Couple killed in their home on Ellis Avenue, few doors down from the Glory of Christ church, as I recall. Daughter disappeared, presumed killed too. Bobby died. The shooting was unrelated to the case. Case went cold.” I sipped my coffee. Outside, birds were singing in the warm, summer Sunday morning. “You want to look at that case?”

  She shrugged and pulled a face at the same time. “I was always curious.” She eyed me while she wiped her mouth with her napkin. “I have a feeling about that case, Stone. It was seven years ago this fall…” She tapped her temple with her finger. “And it’s still up here. I don’t know why we never looked at it.” She took the same finger and wagged it at me. “There is more to that case that meets the eye, and you knew it at the time. I could see it, writ large on your ugly face.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Your face isn’t ugly. Don’t get sensitive. You know what I’m saying.”

  “Yeah, it caught a lot of people’s attention at the time. But what can I tell you? It wasn’t my case. They hit a dead end…”

  “He got shot.”

  “That didn’t help. What’s your point, Dehan?”

  She laid her knife and fork across her plate, picked up her cup and frowned into her coffee.

  “There was more to that case than that couple getting stabbed to death. I was interested at the time, but I was a rookie. I wish I’d been your partner back then. We should have taken the case. There were threads that were never followed. I knew you were thinking back then that the case should never have gone cold.”

  “How could you know that?”

  She smiled. “I was aware of you.”

  “Really? Back then?”

  “Sure, you were this wiseass, smartass with a bad attitude who had a kick-ass record for solving hard cases.”

  “So it was all about the ass?”

  “You know it.”

  I shrugged and then followed up with a nod. “It’s true, I did think that at the time. Bobby’s partner…” I thought for a moment. “Sanchez. He kind of sat on it for a while. Then it went cold. I had cases of my own…”

  “You know what?” She frowned. “There were aspects to the case I often thought could have made it a federal case.”

  I was surprised. I thought back, trying to remember. It had been six years ago and the details were hazy. “I’m not sure, Dehan. I can’t think of anything off hand that would take it out of the purview of the NYPD and bring it within the jurisdiction of the Bureau… Talk me through.”

  She poured herself more coffee. I held out my cup and she refilled mine, too. Then she sat back, holding her cup in both hands, her eyes became abstracted and she started to recite from memory.

  “Karl and Christen Redfern, 2163 Ellis Street, first floor apartment. Occupied by them and their daughter, Amy. Some time between the night of Saturday the 22nd and the small hours of Sunday 23rd September, 2012, somebody entered their apartment and killed Karl and Christen. His body was found in the kitchen. He had been stabbed in the right kidney, once, with a long, broad, sharp blade, probably a kitchen knife. He was then stabbed in the heart, through the fourth and fifth intercostals. However, bleeding from the kidney had been profuse, whereas he had bled little from the heart, suggesting the wound to the heart was perimortem.

  “Christen was killed in their bed while she was sleeping. There were between fifteen and twenty stab wounds to the heart. It was hard to be precise because the area was so damaged and badly lacerated, the ribs themselves had been fractured and broken. Bruising, pre, peri and post mortem was extensive. She also had bruising to the face, and other parts of her body, suggesting the attack went on some time while she was dying, and after she was dead.

  “Amy Redfern was not found at the house, or anywhere else. No trace of her has ever been found.”

  She sipped her coffee and set down her cup with care, like she was centering her ideas on the tabletop. She went on:

  “Of note are the fact that the prints found at the scene were predominantly Karl and Christen’s, Amy and her boyfriend Charlie’s. That is to be expected, but there were no prints that were attributable to a killer on the kitchen knives, the surfaces or the victims themselves.

  “One large kitchen knife was found in the drying rack by the sink. There were no traces of blood or fingerprints on it. Normally, when crockery or cutlery is washed, some prints are found, but this knife had been polished clean. The blade was consistent with the weapon used to kill both of the Redferns and was probably the murder weapon.”

  I grunted. “Do I remember correctly that the lock had been very crudely forced? Hadn’t the wood had been hacked away from the latch with some kind of blade, like a screwdriver?”

  She nodded. “That’s right. And, final point of interest, both Karl and Christen had cannabis, coke and alcohol in their systems.”

  I gazed out the window, across the living room, wondering why we couldn’t spend Sunday morning like normal people, going to the park, or driving out to the country. But the case was coming back to me, and I had to admit, it was interesting, and had intrigued me at the time. Absently, I said, “No motive ever became apparent either, did it?”

  “Nope.”

  She stood and walked over to the window
I’d been looking out of and stood with her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, gazing at the street. After a moment, she turned and sat on the sill.

  “There was no cash found in the house, which may or may not be significant. According to neighbors, they struggled to get by and spent whatever disposable income they had on booze and drugs, mainly weed.” She shrugged. “If I were going to burglarize a house, I would not have chosen theirs. You wouldn’t need to go very far to find a better candidate.”

  I watched her lean down and grab her bag from beside the sofa. From it she pulled a case file, gave me a guilty grin and brought it to the breakfast table. I sighed and reached for it as she handed it to me.

  “Dehan, it’s Sunday. The day even God kicked back and put his feet up.”

  “I know, Stone, but I started rereading it and it got under my skin. What happened to that girl? You know what I mean. I know you do.”

  I opened the file and she lifted out the crime scene photos till she found the photographs of the two bodies, his in the kitchen, slumped on the floor in a dark pool of blood, and hers face down on the bed. We both studied them for a minute. Then I smiled to myself because I knew she was thinking the same as me.

  “What struck me back then was that he was attacked initially from behind, and though it wasn’t expert, it was efficient: a single, disabling stab to the kidney, and as he turned and collapsed, another to the heart.”

  She looked at me and nodded. “I know…”

  I went on, “But the attack on Christen was totally different. It’s savage and frenzied, delivered with enough force to break bone…”

  She was nodding as I spoke. “So you’re thinking that Christen was the actual target. He got Karl out of the way, went into the bedroom and let rip.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, it’s possible, isn’t it? There can’t be much doubt that she was the focus of real rage, and he wasn’t.”

  She scratched her head, then tied up her hair. She looked in her cup, put it down and glanced out the window. I watched her do all that, frowning, and she grinned at me.

  “You want to go see the scene?” I raised a skeptical eyebrow and questioned her with it. She said, “The landlord wants to sell it, so he’s keeping it vacant. I called him. I told him we probably wouldn’t come today, being Sunday an’ all, but that, you know… We might.”

  I stared at her a moment.

  She went on, “He said that would be fine, so long as we don’t scare away potential buyers… Are you mad?”

  “No. I love examining crime scenes on my days off. It makes such a change from what I do the rest of the week.”

  “You’re mad.”

  “No! No, really. It’s obviously got under your skin, so let’s go scratch that itch.”

  I stood and she stared at me, then smiled. “See? That’s why I married you out of four billion men.”

  “Flattery, Dehan, will get you exactly...”

  “Everywhere with you. Everywhere…”

  “Exactly. Everywhere. Let’s go.”

  I pulled on my jacket and gathered together keys and phone.

  It was a warm, quiet Sunday. The birds were busy in the plane trees doing whatever it is that birds do when they won’t stop chattering. I tossed Dehan the keys to my old, burgundy Jaguar Mk II and made my way to the passenger door.

  “Least you can do is drive me, as you’re making me work on my day off.”

  She caught them left-handed without looking and unlocked the car. “Quit griping, I’ll make it up to you.”

  I climbed in and slammed the door. “Damn right you will. Exactly what did you have in mind?”

  She fired up the old bruiser and sniggered. “I’ll buy you a new pair of slippers, and a pipe.”

  I scowled at her. “I don’t wear slippers, Dehan, and I don’t smoke a pipe.”

  She pulled out and accelerated toward Morris Park Avenue. “And I’ll get you a comfy old cardigan to go with them.”

  “Take a hike. This is the thanks I get: mockery!”

  She’d started laughing. “Then you can sit Sunday mornings and watch the sports and get mad at the news.”

  It was a fifteen minute drive from Haight Avenue to Ellis Street, but it was Sunday, the roads were empty and Dehan was driving, so we did it ten. All the way she sniggered, and I made a careful study of the shop fronts.

  2163 Ellis Street was a slightly dilapidated, rust-colored clapboard house with nice big bay windows on the ground floor and the upper floor. It also had a nice porch with five stone steps leading down to the sidewalk and a white, wrought iron railing that looked as though it had recently been painted. A large sign had been attached to those railings, advertising the house for sale.

  We climbed the steps to where a small, brown awning protected the front door from rain and sun, and studied the two mailboxes and the two bells on the entry-phone. Both bells had a faded, misted window where you could put a card with your name on it. They were both empty. Dehan had phoned the landlord from the car to let him know we were coming. Now she pressed the bottom bell and a tired voice said, “Yeah…” like he’d figured we thought life was barely worth living, and he was agreeing with us.

  “Good morning, sir, this is Detective Dehan, of the NYPD. I called about ten minutes ago…”

  “Yuh…” He made it sound like it was a shame she called about ten minutes ago, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. The door buzzed. I pushed it open and stood back for Dehan to go ahead, then followed her into a handsome, well-proportioned hall with an ugly, beige carpet and a broad, mahogany staircase climbing the left-hand wall. On the right, there was a large door which opened, as the street door closed, to reveal a small man in big brown pants and a big colorless cardigan. His face looked as tired as his voice had sounded. We showed him our badges. Dehan spoke.

  “Mr. Bernstein? I am Detective Dehan. This is my partner, Detective Stone.”

  He looked at us curiously, then his eyes smiled.

  “Sure. I know. Come in.” It was all said with the kind of resignation that you buy into because they persuade you it’s a virtue. By the time you realize it’s not, it’s too late, because you’ve already resigned yourself to it. He walked away from us into a large, bright room that ran the full length of the building. He spoke as he walked, in small, tired steps.

  “It was my sister’s house. She died. Everybody dies. Sooner or later. But it’s still a surprise when they do.” After a moment, he added, “I never thought she would ever die.”

  On the right as we stepped in was the bay window. Ahead there was an open fireplace with a black, marble hearth. Against the opposite wall there was an old, leather sofa that had once been expensive, before it was donated, and two armchairs that hadn’t. They all sat around an unattractive coffee table that was pretending to be pine but failing to convince.

  On the left, the area that had once been a dining room was now a kitchen-diner, with a long, fake mahogany table running sideways across the room. In the far wall, there were two doors which I figured were the bedrooms. Mr. Bernstein had his ass against the dining table and was watching us.

  I said, “You remember the Redferns?”

  “Oh, yes. They died too, but for different reasons. My sister died of old age. She was very old.” He shrugged in a way that suggested he found a certain pleasure in the self-evident, and added, “Old enough to die.”

  I asked, “What were they like?”

  “Sad. The daughter was sweet, a bit neurotic. He used to beat them, of course. I guess enough of that could make you neurotic, right? They drank a lot. But one tries not to pry. Would you like me to leave while you do your ‘Monk’ thing?” He smiled and held out his hands in front of him as though he was lining up a shot for a camera.

  Dehan smiled and nodded. “We’d appreciate that.”

  “I’ll be down the road. You have my number.”

  The door closed behind him and a moment later, the sound from the street swelled a second before being cut off when
that door was closed too.

  TWO

  We stared at each other a moment, not aware that we were staring, but somehow sharing our thoughts. I pointed at the kitchen. “You’re Karl.”

  She nodded and went over to the sink, talking over her shoulder. “He was making coffee, right?”

  I went to the door of the apartment. “Yeah, and this is one of the things that always unsettled me. If you’re in the kitchen, making coffee, how come you don’t hear me peeling the wood away from the latch?”

  She thought about it for a moment. “There are two possible answers to that, and they might both apply. First, both Karl and Christen are stoned out of their minds. So while our killer was cutting through the wood, Karl might well have been stood here watching the kettle boil, communing with the fairies and giggling to himself.”

  I gave my head a little twitch and asked, “Or?”

  “Or Karl might have been as unconscious as Christen when the killer came in. He needed to pee, most likely got hungry and thirsty—you know how it is…”

  “No.”

  “Maybe the breaking of the latch was what woke him and he didn’t realize it. So he gets up after the killer broke in.”

  I made the face of a person who is not satisfied. “OK, so you’re in the bedroom. Go in the bedroom…”

  “Which one? I don’t remember.”

  “Have a look.”

  She peered through both doors and turned to face me. “OK, that one on the left is Amy’s.”

  I nodded.

  “This one on the right is bigger and has the en suite.”

  I waved her through the door and I called out to her as I went through the motions of busting the latch.

  “OK, so I break in, meanwhile you fall out of bed, stagger to the toilet. I hear you moving about, I hear you flush, so I hide… where?”

  I looked about. She appeared in the bedroom doorway. I glanced at her and went on. “I guess I flatten myself in the corner, beyond the dining table. The light switch is over in the kitchen, so he hasn’t switched it on yet and it’s still dark. Now you move to the kitchen…”

  She crossed the floor into the kitchen and began to move around like she was making coffee. I moved around the dining table and crept up behind her, stopped and sighed noisily.