The Park Murders (Kindle Books Mystery and Suspense Crime Thrillers Series Book 1) Read online

  Chapter 1: The white rain coat

  Mark could still remember the not so long days in his past when watching an action movie in the theater could get him scared. Everything in his child’s mind seemed true, more genuine than reality itself, in fact.

  There was such intensity in the actions of the characters, both heroes and villains. The colors, the faces, the relentless action, they all seemed so real.

  He came out of the movie theater with the early afternoon crowd. In the theater, they had been playing one of his favorites, one of the big action adventure thrillers of the late nineties. He was glad he could see it again.

  He picked up a newspaper from the stand and crossed the street. His favorite coffee house, the Sideway Café, had not gathered the evening crowds yet. He rushed through the door and stopped at the bar, looking all the way back at the unoccupied table facing the windows.

  “Have you made up your mind today?” Gina the pretty barista asked him. “What will it be?”

  “I’ll have a cappuccino,” he said.

  “The choice of the day,” Gina commented. “How did you like the movie?”

  “Outstanding,” he picked up his drink and rushed to the still empty table. “Sorry, no time to talk, I want to get to that table while it’s still available.”

  The late days of summer were flittering away so quickly, he thought. Soon he will be back in school. He will have to work again on term papers, manuals, quizzes, midterms and finals. When will it end?

  However, as long as the summer persisted, he was planning to have a good time.

  He delved into the newspaper and stopped hearing the noise around him. From time to time, he would take a sip from his cup. Then he would plunge back into the small print of the page and read a little more.

  Suddenly, he heard a voice.

  “A café Americano with soy, please!”

  “While no credible option in itself,” Mark mused, “overall, this was not such a bad choice. Moreover, it sounded pretty good.”

  Mark turned his head to be pleasantly surprised by the sight of a snap-brim fedora, on top of a dirty white, high-collared and wide-lapelled trench coat, the full ensemble being peaked to perfection by a pair of freshly shined black shoes.

  What he was seeing now was the stuff of dreams.

  Mark was a die-hard fan of American film noir and French policier flicks.

  To come face to face with a picture perfect shamus in a quiet Metroville neighborhood, was a treat unequaled, except maybe by the autumnal change of the colors.

  However, the shamus did not seem to be done just yet, because the same husky voice grated his ears again: “I beg you, please help me miss! I have been desperately trying to reach the Carlita Court for the last half hour. Now I am completely lost. I am in a loop. I've been turning round and round Carlita Street. According to my map, I should be able to get to Carlita Court, by way of Carlita Street, taking the second right turn at the second light. Surely, I must be blind as a bat all of a sudden because, try as I may, I cannot see the turn. Maybe I'm not driving on the correct street. Please help me, miss! I'm at the end of my rope,” he finished on a plaintive note.

  This time, Mark peered at his face. A few curly salt and pepper strands were jutting from under his hat. In the dim light reflected throughout the establishment —the shades to the street being partially raised to filter the afternoon sun— the individual exhibited a swarthy visage, with an almost bluish hue in the freshly shaved areas of his face. His eyes, black and inquisitive, were topped by bushy eyebrows.

  No cigarettes being allowed indoors by Local Ordinance, the fellow compensated in manliness with a thick, bushy-tailed black and pepper mustache. The face, seemingly ordinary at first, possessed an irking quality. It persisted on his retina long time after he had turned his head.

  This guy was rough. This guy was tough. This guy was not an actor.

  What was this guy doing in his part of town?

  “You cannot get to Carlita Court from Carlita Street. Your map is wrong, mister,” said Gina the barista, a dark and slender girl of about twenty. “The Diesel Backup Generator is blocking that route,” she pointed the direction with her index finger. “The hospital built the unit about six months ago, for emergencies, in cases of a power failure, see?”

  Apparently, he didn’t because he shook his head in shame.

  “The new structure blocks and, at the same time, hides the former connection to Carlita Court, see? You got to go ‘round it, mister. Continue onto Franklin, where you take a right. Then go on straight two more blocks. Turn right again on Fulton, and immediately right once more and you are there. You cannot miss it. It is a narrow, short, unmarked side street. There is no plaque or other sign visible from the street.

  The people living there, at first, they complained. Now they like it like it is, see, because nobody bothers them, and the mail and the utility guys have learned how to get there.”

  “So my map?”

  “It's out of date mister, sorry. What else can I say?”

  Mark remembered having himself some problems the first time he visited Caro at the new address.

  “It must be the coffee,” Mark thought.

  Why else would he find the information so intriguing?

  Chapter 2: The man at the window

  “I saw a man looking at your window,” Mark said.

  The stranger with the snap-brim fedora had left with his directions and a large café Americano. Mark, who had lucked out into a window table, lingered for a few more minutes in the coffee shop while continuing to observe the Shamus through the windowpane.

  Shamus, what a splendid word that was, it had such a mysterious, ineffable quality. It had authenticity.

  To his ears, it sounded a lot better than private dick, for instance. In reality, he did not have any idea whether the guy was a dick at all, private or public, no pun intended. He did look the part, though.

  After all, like everything else in life, appearances tended to be deceiving.

  Caro had moved into a cozy two-story brownstone, which was, at the time, housing three other students.

  Caro and Marie shared the loft on the second floor. Two fraternity boys, noise-making machines, lived on the first. Marie would flirt lightly with them, now and then, although judging by her stiff upper lip she probably thought they were much beneath her. But practice makes perfect, as they say.

  “At my window? What kind of guy?” Caro asked.

  “Hard to say. Old style, you know,” Mark said.

  “What do you mean by old style?” Caro asked.

  “I did not use the proper term. I guess I misspoke. Not so much old style.” Mark said. “I guess it was his clothes. They must have made this impression on me. This is why I said that. Nobody wears that kind of clothes anymore.”

  “So what did you mean?” Caro asked.

  “Old world, I meant old world,” Mark said.

  “And what the hell does that mean?”

  For a moment, Mark seemed confused. His brow wrinkled in concentration. Then, suddenly the traits of his visage relaxed and Mark grinned at Caro. All of a sudden, he was very sure of himself.

  The guy had crossed the street, he remembered, then he had opened the driver-side door of an Avocado Green Mercedes-Benz roadster and he had inserted himself into the seat. He did not leave immediately; instead, he opened a notebook and started scribbling.

  “He wore one of those dirty white trench coats with wide lapels common in the French crime flicks of the sixties,” Mark sai
d.

  “So are you telling me he looked like a cop?” Caro asked.

  “Not exactly like a cop, no! Basically, you’re get two types, you know, in those movies. Now that I think better of it, you get three.”

  “Why three: you’ve got the cops and you’ve got the robbers …” Caro enumerated.

  “And the chorus girls … the dancers,” Mark said.

  “He didn't look like one of those ... foot loose and fancy-free types. Is that what you meant to say?”

  “No, he didn't.”

  “The cops and the robbers, then.”

  “The cops and the robbers, yes.”

  “So he didn't look like a cop, he must have looked like a robber,” Caro said quietly.

  “He stared at your windows. He wore this trench coat, with one of those old-fashioned pinstripe gray suits under, black socks, black polished shoes, and a black umbrella.”

  “So he was all dressed in black.”

  “Yeah, except for the dirty white raincoat and the white shirt and the red tie.”

  “He had a red tie?”

  “Yes, with yellow and blue stripes.”

  “Yellow and blue stripes, My God, what kind of hooligan would wear that?”

  “He was an older guy, you know; not old, older, about forty, forty-five, but still in pretty good shape by the look of him, with a fresh shave and fresh haircut.”

  “My, my, aren't we observant?”

  “Well, you know, it was a coincidence, really.”

  “What was a coincidence?”

  “Well, I was doing the crossword puzzles with a cappuccino by my side at the old Sideway Café when this guy made his appearance.”

  “Made his appearance, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “At first, I thought he was an actor, you know, with that funny outfit of his. I even thought he was using face paint, but maybe I was wrong. His persona contained an element of unreality. He looked all made up.”

  “More and more mysterious this thing is getting,” Caro quipped.

  “Now Gina, she was the barista.”

  “You like Gina.”

  “I wouldn’t necessarily phrase it in exactly that way.”

  “You don’t like Gina?”

  “Like her in the sense that I think she’s an agreeable presence, makes things smooth and pleasant around her, that’s how I'd put it.”

  “Agreeable presence, my foot; when Gina's the barista you always leave those exorbitant tips.”

  “However, on the other hand, when Tony is serving …” Mark paused for the effect.

  “Well, you know my theory about coffee making ... Anyways. He’s asking Gina about how to get here.”

  “How to get here?”

  “He was lost. He was asking Gina how to get on to Carlita Court. Then I remembered the first time I came over here. Remembered how I got lost.”

  “Because of the Ethanol Engine?”

  “The Diesel Backup Generator.”

  “Right, the Diesel Generator used in emergencies. So I observed him, you know. He scribbled Gina's instructions of how to get here on his notepad, I don't understand why. They were simple enough, but as I said, it may be that we are talking about an elder gentleman, or a very meticulous one, which is not always the same thing. He started the car, followed the instructions, and stopped in front of your building. He got out of the car, on the sideway, in front of the brownstone and stared at the windows. I found it curious. You know. Why should he be interested in your windows? I was wondering: 'Who is this guy?' Then you came out on the balcony, for a minute or so, to water the flowers. He looked at you: intensely, that how I would characterize it. Then he proceeded to the main entrance. He read the list of names on the intercom. I thought he was going to ring your apartment since he looked like he had some business with you, but all he did was read the names.”

  “Only Marie’s name is on it. I never got to adding mine.”

  “That's probably why he didn't ring. After he read the names, he turned and left, and I hardly had time to get out of his way, but he did not pay any attention to me anyway. So I thought he was really looking for you. And seeing that your name was not on the list, he must have decided that he'd made a mistake and left.”

  “Why would he be looking for me? Who would be looking for me?” Caro wondered. “Well, whoever he may be. Sooner or later we'll find out.”

  “Maybe he'll never show up again.”

  “Maybe so.”

  Caro looked unconvinced.

  Chapter 3: Roger prepares

  Roger stopped at the window. The night sky was making him dizzy. He felt as if time expanded and then suddenly stopped, allowing to the accidental observer a brief peek into the ends of the universe. Roger shuddered because the vision rekindled in his stunted soul the cold premonition of the icy solitude of death.

  The sight of tall buildings made him feel small and inconsequential.

  A myriad of glimmering points, like fireflies, was pulsating light into the gossamer night.

  He breathed deeply, his head resting on the cold pane of glass. It felt like home. Like a particular home anyway; the miraculous home of the childhood.

  He remembered a Christmas Eve, hiding behind the gift room door, waiting for Santa, trying to catch him in the act. His fevered brow was pressing on the cold glass pane harder and harder as he was impatiently raising himself on his toes, trying to peek into the room.

  The glass pane suddenly shattered, like the crest of a wave dazed by the moon's fatal attraction to earth's gravity, and disintegrates into a million drops of sparkling mist.

  Everybody hated him for it: his parents, whom he had surprised taking their so-called nap, and who took him grumbling to the Emergency Ward; the admitting nurse, terribly put off on the account of some uncanny reason, hissing “Dirty little rotter,” between tightly pressed lips—so indiscernible to everybody else but him that it had remained ever since an intimate communication just between the two of them—the attending physician, preoccupied, at the moment, with better things to do; and even Uncle Theo, whose face had surprisingly materialized behind Santa Claus's long white beard.

  “It is magic,” Roger thought. “To get something for nothing, and to never have to give it back. Not as big as a real miracle is, granted. There are sterner requirements for those. Nature itself has to bend.”

  Then he exhaled a resigned sigh.

  “Something like that just cannot stand. Day in, day out, you break your back for every stinking dollar.”

  It was only now that he realized the irking feeling, the existential malaise which had seized him from the very moment when he had embarked on this new and exciting adventure, found its origins in his unhappy birthing and early rearing, in his modeling as a still unformed infant, his sculpting with blunt chisel and tearing instrument, which had followed later, during early childhood, the baking of the clay in the dance of fire, the reward and the punishment, the lecturing and the praise: all this exhaustive travail of emancipation through chaining and whipping, by the never redeemed promise of the future: all this mega-forest of mini events which had created the linear, finite universe, now named Roger.

  “Eureka!” Roger said, attaining justification belatedly. “It’s too easy.”

  The reason had been finally found, only to be summarily dismissed.

  However, his plan was solid and his objective already in sight.

  He opened the case file he had retrieved from his PO Box a few hours back. He was renting a number of boxes all across the world.

  He immersed himself in his work.

  The folder contained pictures of the blond girl: single portraits, group portraits, she running in the park riding her bicycle, playing tennis, laughing and sad. He read her bio, checked her current address and her contact information. He got familiar with the city map. Then he spent a few minutes studying the map of the park, trying to memorize as many details as he could.

  She was running in the park every morning. He t
ook a few minutes to get a feel for the neighborhood. When he was satisfied, he replaced the file in the briefcase and locked it.

  She lived all by herself in a large apartment on the second floor of a brownstone on Carlita Court. He had passed by the house a few days ago to verify this information. By a lucky coincidence, just as he was looking at the objective, she had come out on the balcony to water the plants, allowing him to make a positive ID.

  Setting up an in-house accident had been his first, natural impulse. He had toyed with the idea while observing her. He specialized in them. Of all the rooms in a household, it was the bathroom and the kitchen he liked the most.

  Ah, the utility rooms! These places invited the disaster. Most housebound accidents happened there.

  You've got the water, you've got the fire, you've got the sharp and blunt instruments; you've got the slippery surfaces.

  All the ingredients for a perfect, undetectable crime were there.

  These rooms were easy to set up, easy to clean. No wonder that the most common and bizarre accidents happened there.

  You've got the heart attacks, you've got the unexpected falls, which result in the breaking of the neck or spine. You've got the drowning in the bathtub after slipping on a bar of soap and becoming unconscious.

  Many a stroke and fatal knife injury happen in the kitchen. Burning or even big fires usually start there, but those were too messy for Roger's prim sense of cleanliness and sensitive stomach. He had always preferred the antiseptic quality of the bathroom.

  But now a novel idea intrigued him, a thing of beauty and simplicity.

  Step by step, he followed her in the park. Under the calming shade of the tree crowns, he had stopped to rest and think, ruminate and meditate.

  Who could know the names of all the trees growing in the park? Roger, he was no botanist.

  He was an honest man practicing an honest craft. Time to go back to work. A humble journeyman; however, some would call him a master.

  There was this paved lane in the park, shared by bikers and joggers. It ran along the bed of the old river.