Stuart Kaminsky: Blood On The Sun

"Yes, but we won't go back till the paramedics take them away in a few minutes."

"I can wait," she said, reaching for the glass of water.

When Mac got up, the front door opened and Detective Defenzo stepped in.

"I think we have a witness," he said.

Lying in bed, she could hear the sounds of the city street traffic rumbling by even with the air conditioner on full blast. She was fully clothed, in a loose-fitting white cotton dress with odd, almost symmetrical patterns of color that reminded her of the works of Piet Mondrian.

She had been an art major, had painted, but knew she wasn't good enough or daring enough to make even a small scratch in the Manhattan art market.

The television set was on, but she had turned off the sound. She closed her eyes and put her left arm over her eyes to block out the sun and the world.

She was going to be forty-three on her next birthday. She knew she looked at least ten years older. She was eleven pounds overweight and had no plans for losing any more.

The woman did not consider herself a failure. She certainly didn't consider herself a success either. She simply went through each day with books, trips to the Museum of Modern Art. Once she had enjoyed cooking. No more. Carry-out food was cheap, close by.

Her father, a big man, had been in army intelligence during and after the Korean War. He had always worn an accepting smile that suggested that he knew things others, especially his children, would never know and would be better off not knowing. When he had died in his room, he had insisted on being alone and having no clergy at his side. She didn't even know if he believed in God or had been born into any religion.

What did she know of him beyond that? His favorite food was duck. His favorite movie was Wild Boys of the Road. He read The New York Times from cover to cover every day that he was home. He seemed to be content with whatever television show the family wanted to watch. She had no idea if he had been a Republican, a Democrat or a Socialist.

Her mother, shaped not unlike the woman in the bed was now, had clearly loved her husband, had spent her days teaching at the local elementary school and writing in her diary. She had been born a Methodist. As far as the woman in the bed knew, her father had never tried to talk his wife out of her religious beliefs. She had simply let them slide away.

She heard footsteps coming up the stairs, light, almost noiseless. There was no point in pretending to be asleep. He would know.

Just as she had known, when her father had come back from one of his "duties" out of the country, that the man coming up the stairs had done something or seen something about which she would never learn.

The footsteps were at the top of the stairs now. The door opened.

"Tea," he said, holding out the tray with the small blue-and-white pot and the matching cup and saucer.

She looked up.

Yes, he wore the same look she had seen on the face of her father when he had returned from one of his "duties." The next few days would be dark.

She sat up, accepting the offered tray.

She strongly suspected that he had killed. She strongly suspected that he would soon be doing so again. Maybe it was her imagination, but they had been together for so much of their lives that she could sense it.

And he was well aware that she could sense it.

Defenzo and Mac walked across the street to the house of Maya Anderson. It was well maintained, recently painted, probably the most modest house in the neighborhood.

The gawkers, not many of them, were still there. Now they were watching the paramedics take out their cart and wheel it into the Vorhees house. It would be the first of three carts and the crowd would be thrilled, frightened, repulsed, and happy that they were still alive as each draped body was removed from the house. They would have a story to tell, something new to fear, something that could become part of the backlog of stories that almost everyone carried with them.

Maya Anderson opened the door immediately. Her gray hair was cut short and she wore jeans and a green long-sleeved shirt over her compact body. She was definitely more than seventy; her bright green eyes revealed a dancing intelligence.

She ushered them in, moved ahead of them to a small kitchen, motioned for them to sit and asked what they wanted to drink. "Coffee, Diet Coke, water, a beer, schnapps?"

"Nothing, thanks," said Mac.

Defenzo accepted a Diet Coke.

When they were all seated, Maya, hands folded in front of her, said, "I garden."

She looked over her shoulder out the window, where Mac could see a colorful array of blue, red, white and yellow flowers.

"I garden, read, watch HBO, take long walks and snoop on my neighbors," she said. "Used to be a bank manager. I don't sleep very much, which gives me a lot of time at the front window reading, watching old movies and seeing what's going on."

"What went on last night?" asked Mac.

"Morning. Around two. Vorhees girl's boyfriend pulls up in his pickup truck, parks down the block in front of the Packers', driver gets out and walks back to the Vorhees house. Goes in back."

"The pickup truck?" asked Defenzo, working on his Diet Coke.

"Blue," the woman said. "Dent on the right side."

"The man?" asked Mac.

"Sort of tall. White. Dark hair. One of those swaggerers, you know? Can't be sure if it was the boyfriend, too dark, but it definitely looked like him and he was driving his truck."

"Boyfriend come here often?" asked Mac.

"I probably shouldn't say," Maya answered with a sigh, "but what the hell. He'd drop the girl off in the afternoon, after school."

"Last night?" asked Mac.

Maya Anderson nodded somberly.

"Maybe some noise a few minutes after the boyfriend goes in through the back," she said. "Hard to tell. My eyesight's good, but my hearing leaves something to be desired. Besides, that old house has thick walls and windows. To tell the truth, I think I dozed off for a few minutes. Then I heard a car door open, got my glasses on and saw the boyfriend's pickup go riding off."

"Which way?" asked Mac.

"That way," she said, pointing, "toward Queens Boulevard." Queens Boulevard fed directly into the Queensboro Bridge to Manhattan.

"Why didn't you call the police?" asked Defenzo, finishing his drink. Maya rose, took the can and dropped it into a covered receptacle marked RECYCLE.

"Over the last four years I've called the police fourteen times," she said. "Family fights, televisions turned too loud, dogs walking without leashes and pooping without anyone picking it up, Parker Niles from the next block drunk and throwing rocks at the streetlights, things like that. They don't take me seriously anymore."

"Thank you, Mrs. Anderson," said Mac, standing.

"They're all dead, aren't they?" she asked.

"We haven't found the boy yet," said Mac.

"I hope the boy got away," she said.

"We're going to find out," said Mac.

Instead of heading for his car, Mac crossed the street with Defenzo at his side, paused in front of the Vorhees house and looked around at the trees. For the next fifteen minutes, Mac inspected every tree on the Vorhees property and every one two houses down on either side of it.

Finally, he stopped, looked up and down the street.

"What?" Defenzo finally said, unable to hold it in any longer.

"No match," said Mac, deep in thought.

"For what?" asked Defenzo.

Instead of answering, Mac headed for his car, behind which the paramedic truck was parked. He paused for an instant as the paramedics brought out the first body.

Kyle Shelton drove.

To the world afraid of tomorrow and grieving over yesterday, he was Kyle Shelton, who knew how to put on clean jeans and a pressed long-sleeved shirt to hide his tattoos.