Chuck Hogan - The Killing Moon - A Novel

“This ‘scarecrow’ took a lot of abuse in this town, sounds like. Maybe he’d finally had enough. Maybe Frond let slip that he had some money stashed around his place, and maybe Sinclair was thinking about skipping town and decided he’d get a lot further with cash in hand. Maybe Frond came home and found him ransacking his place, and Sinclair panicked.”

“All ‘maybe’s.”

“Well, I’m doing what I can. I’ve got a suspect in a murder case who’s up and disappeared. Completely vanished — I don’t know where, I don’t know how. Left behind practically everything, including a closet full of clothes, luggage, cash in a bank account which remains untouched, and the only credit card to his name is the Discover card on his bedroom bureau. Took his bicycle, maybe, but didn’t get very far on it. Everything else, he left behind. Including a little blood at the scene of the crime, the imprint of a size ten and a half Chuck Taylor tread, and various black follicles from a wig of human hair. But wait. Hold on. One other thing he didn’t leave behind. One thing for me to focus on. The missing piece, right? The thing that doesn’t fit. You know what I’m talking about?”

Maddox shook his head, passably curious.

“Sinclair’s digital camera. That empty docking station hooked up to his computer in there. Purchased in early May over the Internet, with said Discover card — camera, hot dock, and media card. Sinclair fooled around with it a bit, took some test shots in his apartment. We know this because he installed the viewing software and uploaded a few date-coded images into his computer. But after that? Nothing. Nothing at all in the two months leading up to his disappearance and Frond’s murder. Meaning, to my mind, there’s a pretty good chance this camera’s got some pictures sitting in its memory card. Pictures that maybe even could give us a line on where he is now. You said the docking station was empty when you were inside his place the first time. It’s a small camera, by the way. Pocket-sized.”

Maddox said, “Are you accusing me of something?”

“Look, you’re stuck here in the middle of nowhere. Free reign on your night shifts, nobody watching. No chief or shift sergeant crawling up your ass. You’re not making any money. And nobody has a crystal ball — nobody knows how one little act, an impulse, a spur-of-the-moment decision, is going to affect everything else down the road. Hell, you might even regret it, but can’t see how to make it right. I’m saying, so long as I get that media card back intact? No harm, no foul.”

Maddox worked hard to keep his cool. A tough read, this guy. “Why don’t you ask the kid who was staying here where the camera is?”

“I’d like to,” said Hess. “I’d like to very much.”

Maddox waited. “And?”

“We checked with the Ansons, his foster parents. They haven’t seen him in days.”

“The Ansons aren’t known as the most diligent guardians,” Maddox said. Then he thought about it. “Wait a minute. Are you saying he’s missing?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

For the first time since he’d met him, Hess saw Maddox look surprised.

Bucky was waiting with Eddie and Mort Lees when Maddox came out the back door. Maddox hesitated, and thought Bucky didn’t see it, then continued down the steps toward his patrol car.

Bucky moved out in front of the others, touching his own abraded cheek as though it were wet with paint. “Thought only girls kicked.”

Maddox said, “All I could manage with you letting your boys here do the real fighting.”

Bucky grinned. “I’m gonna miss you, Maddox.”

“Oh? I’m going somewhere?”

“You getting along good with the troopers? Hanging out at Scarecrow’s apartment there? You seem to be their boy now.”

“Yeah,” said Maddox, keeping an eye on the others. “They’re a fun bunch.”

“Uptight shits,” said Bucky. “Their whistles and faggoty-ass boots. The fucking gay Gestapo, marching in here.” He nodded at the station. “Putting us out of our own house like cats.”

Eddie chimed in. “Mountie assholes.”

Bucky said, “Scarecrow needs to be caught? So put me on it. I’ve tangled with him before.”

Maddox said, “Slapping around a guy in handcuffs isn’t exactly tangling.”

Bucky grinned harder, enjoying this. Maddox couldn’t touch him anymore. “You think Frond wishes he’d kept his big mouth shut now? Trying to turn me in? They say karma’s a bitch — but man. That same piece of shit he was defending coming back and killing his ass? So funny it’s almost sad.”

Maddox said, “Sinclair would be in prison right now if your tangling hadn’t gotten him out of that drunk driving conviction. If you hadn’t messed up the arrest.”

Bucky was having a hard time keeping victory from bursting out of him. “I really am gonna miss you, Maddox.”

“Is that right?”

Bucky stepped closer. “How’s it feel? No Pinty here to bail you out anymore. Nobody to run to. What’s it like, being all alone?”

“Pinty’s coming back.”

“That’s not what I heard. Not what I saw there out on his back patio. Reality is, the old man’s time has come and gone. And so has his pet cop’s. Once Pinty kicks, you can consider yourself unemployed.”

Maddox said, “You’re not police chief yet.”

“But I will be. That’s the beauty of it. With no Pinty to hold me back anymore? I might even run for his seat on the board of selectmen when it opens up.” Bucky looked to the others for enthusiasm. “Be the new Pinty in town.”

They were all smiles. Maddox was pretending hard that Bucky wasn’t getting under his skin, but the truth was so obvious, and so good.

The rear screen door squealed. A plainclothes trooper looked out. “Maddox? The K-9 units are here. Hess wants you over at the bridge.”

Maddox thumbed back at his patrol car. “I was on my way home.”

The trooper said, “You’re the one who found the bike. Hess wants you there.” He turned and went back inside, the door whacking shut.

Maddox cursed under his breath. That surprised Bucky. So Maddox wasn’t sucking up to them after all. He was their lackey. This gave Bucky another quiet thrill.

“K-9?” he said, almost laughing before he could get it out. “I guess somebody’s got to scoop up all that dog shit.”

That broke up the others.

“Put that paper diploma of yours to good use,” said Bucky, another kick in the shins.

But Maddox didn’t sulk. Instead, he came up eye to eye, his voice dropping so that only Bucky could hear him. “Your day is coming.”

Bucky tried hard to keep up his mirth. Maddox’s eyes were eager and hard, like he had more to say but preferred to sit on his information like a fucking hen on a warm egg.

Bluffing. All bullshit. Maddox knew nothing. Smug fuck.

Bucky burned so hot that he had to remind himself that he was in fact winning here. That everything, from Frond being murdered to Pinty going down, was falling his way. Like a giant hand clearing a path for him. Everything meant to be. All he had to do was sit back, and Maddox would be next. Then absolutely nothing would stand in his way.

Maddox turned and walked to the stairs, Bucky resurrecting his grin for the others. “I’m gonna miss him,” Bucky said. “I truly am.”

Maddox drove fast, setting aside his disgust for Pail in order to focus on the missing Frankie Sculp. That sullen kid with the dyed-gold hair. His hungry eyes and shoved-in face, as though the doctor had flat-handed him at birth. His face rippled with acne, his skin the color and consistency of a peeled-apart peanut butter and jelly sandwich.