Read Parker 04 - The Fury Online
Authors: Jason Pinter
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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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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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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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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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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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