Chuck Hogan - The Killing Moon - A Novel

“But they’re the ones making the cases these days. The kids who paid attention in chemistry class, who sat there and memorized the elements chart — they solve the crimes now. Me? I’m more like the coach. Used to be first-string quarterback, now I’m drawing up X s and O s. If it’s a promotion, I don’t know. Bill Belichick. That’s me now.”

Two trouble spots identified. Bucky Pail, the shorter brother, wasn’t lapping it up with the rest. A definite nail in the road going forward. And Maddox, the one lurking in back, almost hiding there, was another question mark. He chuckled like the others, but without sincerity. Could be he was just the black sheep of the bunch.

“Right, so, I’m a guy who likes to keep local law involved. Let’s kick this thing around a little, shall we?” Hess had learned to use his eyebrows, raising them high like expectations, inviting candor, demanding truth. “A witch, huh? What do we make of that?”

Some shaken heads, no one committing to anything.

“Safe to say this is no random crime. There’s no transient population here. Anybody passing through Black Falls — no offense — there’s not a lot to stop for. So we can pretty much assume the witch knew his assailant. Is it a sex crime? Maybe.”

“Sex crime?” said Eddie Pail, shaping up to be an easy mark.

“Why not? Looked like the guy had been in his underwear. I mean, if he’s got obvious enemies, fine, we’ll look at them. But I’m just as happy to start off with his friends.”

He watched them process that.

“Guy’d been beaten up, and I mean severely. Busted to pieces. Just to let you know we’re not playing here. House was also gone over pretty good. Our killer spent some quality time in there. And why not? No neighbors nearby, nobody to hear anything. Who here’s working the note?”

Again they looked around. “What note?” said a big bag of shoulders, Mort Lees.

“The notification,” said Hess. “Frond’s next of kin.”

Shrugs. Hadn’t occurred to anyone. Eddie Pail looked at his brother, Bucky, who kept on looking straight at Hess.

“So,” said Hess. “Anything else anybody wants to add?”

Bucky Pail said, “Maybe.”

Hess nodded. “Go for it.”

“We got a missing sex offender.”

“Okay.”

“You said sex crime.”

“I sure did. What you got?”

“Scarecrow, we call him. Real name’s Dillon Sinclair.”

“Missing how long?”

“More than a week now, I guess.”

Bucky Pail stepped past Hess and around the front counter to the beginning of the hallway behind. Pushpinned onto the corkboard outside a door labeled REPORTS ROOM were badly photocopied registration sheets featuring mugs and vitals of nine Level 2 and Level 3 sex offenders stacked three by three. Bucky fingered the one in the center, a small-headed guy with a firing-squad expression.

Hess skimmed the bio. “Kid-toucher,” he said. “Girls or boys?”

“Boys.”

“He’s Level Two,” said another voice. Hess was surprised to hear from Maddox now, still in back of the others. “Nonviolent.”

Hess nodded, taking the opportunity to drill Maddox with a stare, then turned back to Bucky Pail. What were these two trying to tell him?

Hess pointed to the SO’s picture. “What’s with the eyebrows?”

“He shaves them off,” said Bucky Pail. “Guy’s a full-time freak.”

In the photo, Sinclair had been posed against the wall opposite where Hess was now, unsmiling, borderline scared, the missing facial hair making him look alien and terminally ill. Probably was the look he was going for.

“All right, gentlemen,” said Hess, looking to wind this up. “Look, maybe you don’t want us here, and maybe we don’t even want to be here. A blind date is what it is, and I’ve been on some pretty rough ones. Let me do my job, and I’ll let you do yours, so long as you understand that, when the time comes to dance, I’ll be the one leading. If you’re good with that, then I’m good with you. We good?”

Unenthusiastic nods. A troop of sad sacks and misfits. Hess had a fun forty-eight hours ahead of him.

She dreamed again that she was dead and floating through town. Landing in different places, people stopping and staring as she walked up to them, awaiting her caress. She touched them over their hearts and some fell dead limp right away, as if she were one of those revival faith healers on TV. Others shivered at the contact, jolted by the release of their souls from their bodies, and then joined the small mob following her. When she came to Bucky, he was standing outside his backyard trailer, the one that stunk so bad, whose curtained windows and padlocked door glowed wild white from within. She reached for him but froze in midembrace. It was his eyes. Empty black sockets. She looked at her hand, and it was black now with all the death she had brought to people. Her nails were rotted and peeling off, knuckles shriveled to the bone. She pulled it back in shame, and Bucky turned away, leaving her to walk on alone.

“Wanda. Wake up. Wanda!”

Something peeled back her eyelid. Her vision was blurred. Donny Maddox called her name.

You came to beg me to spare you, she tried to say, though her lips wouldn’t move the words right.

The bed shaking now, an earthquake. Ride it out. What the fuck.

The massive thumb opened her eye again. Like looking up through a deep hole in the ground. “Wake up.”

“I’m dead,” she sneered, and tried to roll over, but the bed wouldn’t let her.

“You’re burning up.” The covers were peeled back like foil off a TV dinner. “You’re wearing sweats?”

“Freezing,” she said, grabbing after the sheets. “How’d you get in here?”

He was dream Donny, trying to reach her in a dream within a dream. He was that clever. “Listen,” he said. “It’s important. I need to know. Bucky ever talk about Frond?”

“I couldn’t touch him,” she said. “My black hand.”

Shaking again, her head getting tossed. “Frond,” Donny said, full into her face.

“No,” she answered.

“Bucky never talks about him?”

“Are you really in my bedroom?”

His hands came off her shoulders and she wriggled back into comfort.

Noises kept her from sinking down for good. She opened an eye and saw Donny’s back to her, leaning over her nightstand, the drawer open. “Going through my stuff?”

“You’re dreaming,” he told her.

“If I’m dreaming then get in here and fuck my ass.”

When nothing happened, her eyes fell shut again, tiny black hands pulling her down.

Donny made him turn out the light over the front steps. He kept checking the road. “This escalates everything.”

Pinty gripped the doorknob in order to take pressure off his hips, switching weight from one leg to the other. His right foot had been numb all day, almost causing a fall. He’d had a dizzy spell earlier, so he was trying to take it easy. “Work it to your advantage.”

“It just doesn’t make any sense. ”

“Why not? It’s revenge. Frond reported him.”

“But why now? Why bring the state police here? It’s too dangerous a distraction. Staying under the radar, that’s Bucky’s only plan.”

“Then?”

“I don’t know.” Donny pulled his cap off and ruffled his hair. “I can’t think.”

“Severely beaten, you say?”

“And now I’ve got this state trooper. A buzz-cut guy, a weight lifter, right? Something to prove. Looking for some ass to kick.”

“Maybe he’ll come and go.”

“And what if he doesn’t? What if Bucky has to shut everything down for a couple of weeks? Then what?”