Chuck Hogan - The Killing Moon - A Novel

“He knows a way, he said. All the cops. He’s going to turn this shit-fucking town upside down.”

Maddox shouldn’t have let him go. Shouldn’t have tossed him back for fear of scaring away the bigger fish

But then again, it hardly mattered what Maddox or anyone else did. Truth was, Frankie had the mark on him. Maddox had seen it before. The kid had been bred to cut a path to his own self-destruction. Maddox only hoped he had not arrived there yet. Maddox would have to start looking for Frankie himself, though with Pinty being in the hospital, and Hess yanking his leash, his walking-around time was severely limited.

He passed the red STATE FARM INSURANCE AGENT sign at the end of Walt Heavey’s driveway, thinking of the hand-rolled cigarette butt he had found there, frowning again at the thought of Sinclair lurking around Heavey’s house. That weak-minded fool. Why, of all people, would he kill Frond? The one guy who had intervened on his behalf with Bucky’s abuse? Even if Sinclair had somehow found out about Frond sleeping with his sister — Sinclair had no stake in that. He and Val were brother and sister in name only.

Maddox neared the one-lane bridge that marked the paved end of Edge Road and the beginning of a tagged-on half mile of dirt and rock. He pulled over behind an unmarked cruiser and walked to the gravel turnout just before the short, rusted span that bore no name. The three rat-tailed boys who had called it “Toad Bridge” stood below, on the hard bank of the dribbling, heat-strangled brook, showing state police Crime Scene Services technicians where they had discovered Sinclair’s bicycle.

Walt Heavey was also present, having walked down from his house. He was testifying in front of Hess, who stood back off the road in the shade, spraying his big arms with bug repellent. “I’m telling you, there is something going on in these woods.”

“This woman at your boys’ window,” said Hess, arms glistening sleeve to wrist. “She had long black hair. How long?”

“Below the shoulder.”

Hess was working the wig angle. Sinclair had been known to wear that thing out on his balcony after dusk, overlooking the center of town. He asked Heavey, “Ever hear anything in the woods at night like music, or chanting?”

Heavey gave this serious thought. “No, sir. But you are looking at a man in the insurance game fourteen years now, as level as they come. And I am telling you, there is something going on in these woods.”

Hess thanked him and Heavey went away satisfied. Hess handed the aerosol can back to Bryson and turned to Maddox. “He said something about you shooting a deer the same night he heard his gunshot?”

“Back up the road by the falls.”

Hess smoothed a goatee that was not there and said no more. His sandy hair was thinned back from his forehead, showing a lot of scalp. Premature hair loss was a common trait among hard-core weight trainers, especially those who had relied on supplements in the past.

Handlers led two lean German shepherds out of a K-9 van on long leather leashes, sitting them at attention about ten meters back from the bridge. Hess admired the dogs’ muscular obedience, until something farther back along the road put a shadow of anger across his face.

Maddox turned and saw the orange highway department pickup parked back at the turn. Ripsbaugh was unloading an armful of traffic cones.

Hess summoned a uniformed trooper to his side, his voice quiet but forceful. “I want him out of here.”

Maddox stepped up before the trooper started off. “I’ll do it,” he said.

Hess looked at Maddox, wondering why he would bother, then permitted it with a flick of his wrist.

Maddox walked back past the cars lining the baking road to where Ripsbaugh was setting down his cones. “Kane,” Maddox said.

Ripsbaugh straightened, Maddox getting a sense of the strength inside his saggy pants and silent attitude, years of steady labor bound up in muscle. “Don.”

“Hey, uh...” He nodded back at Hess. “They want you to leave. They don’t want you around.”

Ripsbaugh stared. “I’m closing off the road. This turn here—”

“I know. I know. I’m just telling you what they said.”

Ripsbaugh looked toward the turnout at the bridge. Hess was ignoring him, talking to someone else. Ripsbaugh was usually hard to read, but here the insult was plain.

Twelve hours after the DNA results had come back, Ripsbaugh’s state police shadow simply disappeared. No apology to Ripsbaugh, no explanation. Because Ripsbaugh was never officially charged, he didn’t have to be officially cleared. So add to the taint of cuckoldry a cloud of suspicion still lingering over Ripsbaugh’s head.

Maddox said, “Leave the cones with me. I’ll pick them up when they’re through here, run them on back to you.”

Ripsbaugh slowly set down the cones. He was the kind of man who knew little of life other than the satisfaction of hard work. Take away his work and you leave him with nothing.

Maddox returned to the bridge. They had brought the boys up from the brook and sent down the dogs, handlers walking them back and forth over the cracked mud bank. The dogs sniffed and prodded aggressively, turning up zilch. Then CSS guys tossed down paper bags for the handlers to rip open underneath the dogs’ noses, one containing a black T-shirt, the other a ratty pair of black crew-length socks. Clothes from Sinclair’s apartment. The handlers snapped commands in German, and the dogs dutifully explored the site a second time. One of them seemed to scent something, but was unable to follow it.

The handlers then led them in wider, concentric circles. Maddox slapped at bugs while Hess remained a portrait of serenity, watching the police dogs working below for him.

As they moved to the Borderlands side of the short bridge, the handlers regripped leashes, winding the taut straps around their wrists as the dogs started to pull. A handler called up to say that they were “indicating,” and a CSS guy moved sideways down the short embankment carrying an oversized pair of tweezers and a paper evidence bag. What he found on the top curve of the bank he held up for Hess to see.

Maddox wasn’t sure. But he thought it might be the flattened butt of a hand-rolled cigarette.

You weak-minded fool.

The dogs led their handlers farther into the trees, skirting the dry, snaking bank of the brook. Hess and Bryson made their way down to follow, as did Maddox after a moment, tagging along unnoticed.

The dogs abruptly left the brook for the trees, straining against their leashes and pawing through the litter of the forest floor, scrambling over lumpy roots, following a trail. Maddox tried to envision it as he moved. Sinclair ditching his bike by the bridge. Hiking through the forest along this very route. Hiking or running? Could he have been chased?

The midnight gunshot Heavey had heard. Could Sinclair have found his way through these woods after dark, even with a flashlight? What was he doing biking out here in the first place?

The dogs’ barking picked up, and Maddox saw sunlight ahead, a clearing in the trees. The old fire road. Hard-packed and baking in the heat.

The dogs stopped, snarling, pawing madly at the shoulder of the road. Uncanny, the canine sense of smell. Nearly psychic in its ability.

The handlers promenaded the animals around a small perimeter, but to no avail. The dogs strained to get back toward the shoulder. The trail had ended.

The handlers released them from command and their leashes, the dogs jumping back and forth among the dead leaves and pine needles, digging at the ground, agitated and whimpering. They were indicating something, and suffering for their inability to communicate just what it was.