Moonlight Kills by Vincent Zandri

Author:Vincent Zandri
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down & Out Books

Chapter 17

Less than ten minutes go by before I’m safely in the suburbs and driving Albany Shaker Road, the north-bound road that will lead me directly to the Fontaine’s new housing development and the old farmhouse that still belongs to the Constantine’s. I pass by the Loudonville Reservoir on my right-hand side, and the Loudonville Home for the Aged on my left, the stately residence that houses many of the hamlet’s more wealthy old timers. When I come to the four corners, I proceed through the traffic light and drive another mile until I come to the dirt road with a sign out front that reads, “Construction Entrance.”

Set next to the construction entrance is an old white farmhouse. I’d been driving past the place for years without giving it a second thought. Now it’s like a ground zero for some answers to some serious questions. I pull onto the dirt road, but instead of driving into the new housing development, I pull off to the side, kill the power on the Jeep and get out.

I know the Constantines are home because the both of them are sitting out on the front porch. They eyeball me with a mix of curiosity and anxiety as I slowly approach them. When Ben Constantine produces a shotgun from under his rocking chair, and points the double barrels directly at me, it’s now me who’s suddenly filled with anxiety.

“That’s far enough, young man,” he says, his voice gravely and old.

I raise both hands in surrender.

“Take it easy, old timer,” I say. “I’m just here to ask you a couple simple questions. Then I’ll be on my way.”

“Who are you and what do you want?” Constantine asks.

He’s wearing a pair of dirty old khaki pants, a denim work-shirt and an old, oil and mud stained Carhartt jacket over that. On his head, an old green baseball cap that says CAT on the brim. He hasn’t shaved in a few days, and his gray hair is long enough that it extends to half way down his neck. His wife is maybe a few years younger than him. She’s wearing a housedress under a green wool sweater and her salt and pepper hair is pulled back tight in a ponytail. She’s cutting the tips off a pile green beans stored inside a colander, and she’s seems to be entirely uninterested in me, as though her husband pulls his gun on a dozen people per day.

“I just want to talk,” I say. “I’m a private investigator looking into the murder of the TV actress who was murdered recently. The young lady who was found under the kitchen floor of one of the houses under construction up on your property.”

For a quick second I considered replacing “up on your property” with “up yonder,” like John Wayne in one of his Westerns, but then decided against it.

“You mean former property,” Ben Constantine corrects.

“I suppose so,” I say.

The shotgun still staring me in the face.

“You got any ID?” he asks. “I never met a real PI before.

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