Dark Luck (A Suspense Thriller) (8 page)

“Do you take drugs?” The detective asked.

“No, Sir, I don’t.”

“How about pot? You’ve never tried pot?”

“No, Sir, I haven’t.”

“How about your friends? Do any of them use drugs?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve never asked, to tell you the
truth.”

“Okay.” The detective nodded, pensively staring at
Zack. “Do you have a lot of friends?”

“I have a few. Real friends are hard to find.”

“Yes, that’s true.” The detective nodded again. “Do you
like school, Zack? What’s your GPA, by the way?”

Zack bet he knew the reason for this question. He had
heard about a fourteen-year-old boy who had shot his father dead in a fight
over bad grades, and, apparently, so had the detective. 

“School is all right. My GPA is three point seven.”

“Oh, impressive. You’re somewhat of a nerd, aren’t
you?” Hall smiled. “That’s a good thing.”

“I guess you can say so.”

“And you don’t like to cause trouble, do you?”

“No, Sir, I don’t.”

“Do you hang out with troublemakers? There are a lot of
lowlifes out there who would love to take advantage of a kid like you, Zack.”

“No, Sir, I don’t.”

“Very good.” The detective wrote something in his
notepad. “So did you see the killers’ faces? Did you hear their voices?”

“No, I didn’t see their faces or hear their voices. I
was asleep when it all happened.”

There was no doubt the detective knew Zack’s story
since one of his colleagues had written it down the morning after Zack had
murdered his parents. The sneaky cop was just trying to catch him in an
inconsistency. 

“Do you have any ideas about who these people could
be?” 

Zack shook his head. “Maybe they were drug addicts.
Maybe they needed money to buy drugs. They must have cased our house before
they broke in.”

“What makes you think they were druggies?”

“I saw what those scumbags did to my Mom and Dad. No
one in his right mind would have done that. They had to be on meth or
something.”

When he was about to wrap up the interview, the
detective asked, “Do you have a Facebook page?”

“Yes.” Zack nodded.

“Can I have a look? I’ve been thinking of getting one,
too.” Hall smiled and moved the laptop closer to Zack.

Zack could hardly keep from laughing: the detective
must have believed he wouldn’t figure out the actual motive behind this sudden
interest in his Facebook page. You see, Mister Hall had been apparently hoping
that his young interviewee was dumb enough to leave incriminating messages on a
social network site. And Zack had no doubt there had been plenty of real life
examples of such idiotic behavior on the criminals’ part.

“Sure.” Zack gave Hall his email address, which the
detective immediately typed into the Facebook search field.

While scanning Zack’s Facebook page, Hall said, “And
one more thing. Would you be willing to take a lie detector?” The detective
shifted his eyes from Zack to Aunt Clarisse to see her reaction. “It could help
us eliminate you as a suspect.”

“Do you really think that I would murder my parents?”
Zack asked in a moderately indignant tone; that was another piece of advice
Jeremy had given him: he should exhibit innocence at every opportunity but not
overact
.

“No, no, Zack, I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m
just saying that a polygraph could put a lot of questions to rest and save us
all time.”

“Should I do it, Clarisse?” Zack put his hand on his
aunt’s wrist. “I think I’m going to do it. I want all this to be over as soon
as possible.”

“Are you sure, Zack?” Clarisse asked. “I don’t want you
to do anything you feel uncomfortable about. They can’t make you take the lie
detector.”

“I have nothing to hide. And if that’s what it takes to
prove I didn’t kill Mom and Dad, then that’s what I’ll do.”

When they were leaving the police station, Jeremy said
excitedly, “Excellent job, buddy! You definitely have a lot of potential. You
will go far, my boy, I’m sure of it.”

Needless to say, Zack almost shit his pants with pride
and delight.

6.

His lie detector test results were
exactly as he had expected. With Jeremy’s help, Zack had managed to get the
machine to confirm his complete innocence, having beaten every devious trick
the police polygrapher had tried on him. Of course he was not out of the woods
just yet as far as the murder investigation was concerned, but it had been a
major positive development for him nonetheless.

A day later, Zack received even more good news. Aunt
Clarisse told him that it looked like the police had cleared him as a suspect
in the murder of his parents, which had to mean that Jeremy’s fingerprint trick
had worked. But being off the hook with the cops was not the only reason for
Zack to rejoice. The fact that the trick had worked proved irrefutably that
Jeremy actually existed and wasn’t just a figment of his imagination (not that
Zack had ever doubted Jeremy was real).

“I heard they have a couple of promising leads, but I
bet it’s bullshit,” his aunt said.

Was the fake fingerprint on the knife one of those
‘promising leads’? You bet your ass it was.

“Now you see I can do a little magic,” Jeremy said when
they chatted about the success of the fake fingerprint.

Three days after the police interview, Zack went
through what Jeremy called ‘a confidence building exercise.’ This little
adventure was a lot of fun and made Zack feel like that boy in Karate Kid, who
had had to endure a series of travails before he began to believe in himself.
The exercise involved Lenny Walden, Zack’s schoolmate, who was seventeen years
old and had an intellect and a maturity of a sixth-grader.

Lenny was a classic bully and had been harassing Zack
on a regular basis by calling him nasty names, giving him wedgies, kicking and
slapping him here and there, taking his lunch money—the usual stuff, nothing particularly
cruel or vicious, you know. And honestly, it didn’t really bother Zack all that
much. He sure was annoyed, but his feelings had never been hurt because he
realized that imbeciles like Lenny were simply unable to control their
cretinous instincts. Zack responded to Lenny’s badgering by silently despising
him and trying to make his encounters with this moron as short and few as
possible.

Would he have been happy to see Lenny get a taste of
his own medicine? You bet. But Zack had no desire to waste his time plotting
revenge against the worthless buffoon whose GPA was at least one full point
below his.

When Jeremy told him that killing Lenny Walden would
boost his self-esteem and make him tougher, Zack didn’t argue and simply asked
what Jeremy had in mind.

“We’ll improvise,” Jeremy replied.

Luring the bully into their trap proved to be very
easy; all Zack had to do was stand idly in the schoolyard within Lenny’s sight,
talking to Jeremy.

“Who are you talking to, cocksucker?” Lenny barged in.
“Are you talking to yourself? What a loser. Why are you so retarded?” He began
to guffaw.

“Cocksucker?” Zack raised his eyebrow. “Good thing you
mentioned that. Would you like me to suck your dick?”

Lenny spent a few moments digesting his words, then
replied, “What the hell are you talking about, moron?”

“I’m serious. I’d really like to suck your dick, Lenny.
Let’s go find a quiet spot where no one can see us, and I’ll blow you.”

Amazingly, Lenny bought his lie and took the blow job
offer at its face value. Zack had a feeling the guy might have already gotten a
bj from a dude in the past, maybe even more than once.

They met ten hours later in a dark alley two blocks
from Lenny’s house. After ensuring they were alone and unseen by prying eyes,
Zack proceeded to murder Lenny.

“Just imagine that your hand is a knife, a razor sharp
machete, buddy,” Jeremy told Zack as he gazed at his next victim. “I promise
you it will work. Power of the mind, buddy. Believe in the power of your mind.”

Imagine that his hand was a razor sharp machete? It
sounded like fun.

With gritted teeth, Zack unclenched his right fist and
straightened the fingers, making a karate chop hand—he immediately thought of
Bruce Lee, whose poster he’d seen on the wall of his friend’s room years
before. A moment later, he threw his hand, firm as steel and fast as an arrow,
towards Lenny’s solar plexus, all the while picturing a massive shiny machete
in his head. To Zack’s surprise, neither the T-shirt fabric, nor the skin was
able to stop his hand from moving deeper inside the boy’s stomach.

He moved his hand around inside Lenny’s body for a few
seconds, fishing for something to grab, and finally managed to get hold of an
intestine (well, at least it felt like one). By that time Lenny, who had put up
no fight and kept silent during the whole ordeal, was on his last breath. As
soon as Zack drew his hand out, clutching a gut in his fist, Lenny dropped to
the ground like a puppet with cut strings. Zack regarded with curiosity the
intestine he was holding (in the twilight it resembled raw homemade sausage)
and then let go of it. The entire bowel pulling scene was pure horror movie
gold, he thought. Pouring water on his bloodied hand from the plastic bottle he
had brought with him, he began to walk off.

“Did you like it?” Jeremy asked. “Don’t you feel
stronger now?”

Zack was happy to admit he had loved the experience.
“What if I kill Aunt Clarisse next?” he asked.

“That’s not a good idea, buddy. If your auntie ends up
stabbed to death and you have no alibi, police may get suspicious about you and
reopen your folks’ case, which you need like teeth in your asshole.  You’ll
have to wait a few years before popping that broad.”

“Okay.”

7.

Two days after the Lenny Walden adventure, Jeremy
announced their next project. “Now that we know you’re not a pussy, we’re going
to find Doctor Shepard Stevenson,” he told Zack.

“Who is he?”

“He is the only one who can help you with your
condition, buddy. You don’t want to kill again while sleepwalking, do you? That
could get you in trouble someday.”

Zack thought about asking if Jeremy meant killing again
in general or only while asleep but decided to avoid the whole discussion and
replied, “I guess.”

“He works at the Memorial Hospital. We have to go there
immediately.”

“Okay.”

Their plan hit a little snag when Zack came to Memorial
and inquired about an appointment with Shep Stevenson.

“Doctor Stevenson is not with our hospital anymore,”
replied a plump receptionist by the name of Sheila. “He left four years ago.”

“Where can I find him? It’s very important,” Zack
pleaded. “It’s the matter of life and death.”

Zack was a little worried that the hospital people
would refuse to tell him the current whereabouts of Doctor Stevenson, which was
quite possible with all these privacy and confidentiality rules that seemed to
have found their way into every corner of American business. As he waited for
the receptionist’s response, he had begun thinking of the plan B, and the first
idea that popped into his mind was to hire a private eye. The idea probably had
its flaws, but it was a start. Fortunately, he didn’t have to rack his brain
over this matter for too long because Sheila chose to be cooperative with
him.  

 “I believe he works at Boston Medical Center now,” the
receptionist said. After a pause, she added, “In Boston.”

At home, Zack went on the internet and collected phone
numbers of every Shepard Stevenson in Boston and its suburbs. Admittedly, this
was a long shot, but it was worth trying because talking on the phone required
little effort. The first three Shepard Stevensons turned out wrong since they
were not doctors. Dialing the fourth number, Zack thought with slight annoyance
that he might have to hire the private investigator after all.

“Doctor Stevenson?” Zack spoke in as low as a voice as
he could. “Doctor Shepard Stevenson?”

“Yes, this is Doctor Stevenson,” the man replied, and
Zack perked up at once. Finally a doctor!

“I’m calling to inquire if you would be interested in
replacing your boat.”

“Replacing my boat?”

“That’s our guy,” Jeremy said. “I recognize his voice.”

“Are you sure?” Zack asked. “When was the last time you
heard his voice?”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’m telling you that’s our guy.”

“Yes, Sir, your boat,” Zack said into the receiver.

“Sorry, I’m not interested. Bye-bye.” Stevenson hung
up. A moment later, Zack hung up, too.

“Great job, buddy,” Jeremy said. “We’re going ahead of
schedule.”

8.

As Zack was getting ready to leave for Boston, Jeremy
came up with a fun idea: he suggested that Zack steal a car. After he had
killed its owner, of course.