Chuck Hogan - The Killing Moon - A Novel

“Eddie,” Maddox said.

“Right. Was all fired up, tried to badge his way in. You don’t tie him to this? He lived on the damn hill with his brother. He must have known.”

Maddox shook his head, rolling the back of it against the wall. “Not that I could find.”

“But he knew about his brother and Ibbits, right? He knew that Ibbits was in lockup that weekend he supposedly wasn’t, before he disappeared.”

“Seems that way, yes.”

“Okay. Prosecution-wise, it’s a short jump from there. He and the others can come in for conspiracy and intent to distribute. Those are our arrests, for the perp walk. Grand jury ends up not handing down indictments? Well, that’ll be months from now. Nobody remembers.” Cullen loosened up his shoulders. “All right. Now I’m starting to feel better about this.”

Maddox didn’t move, didn’t agree, didn’t say anything.

Cullen said, “You still thought Bucky Pail had something to do with killing Frond, didn’t you?”

The door opened on the station noise. Hess stepped inside, followed by Bryson, the trooper Cullen had talked to at the murder scene. Hess wore the mad-dog expression of a lifter in mid-rep. He reminded Cullen of the middle school football coach he would see one field over from his son’s soccer practice, a guy muscled all out of proportion to his job.

Bryson closed the door, Hess stopping at the entrance to the cell. Staring. Waiting.

Maddox lifted his head from the wall and shrugged.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” said Hess. “How about some fucking professional courtesy, instead of trying to make me look like a fool? Maybe if you’d clued me in to things here, I’d have taken a sharper look at Pail. That occur to you yet? Maybe your catch wouldn’t be quite so dead right now. And you not so shit out of luck.”

Cullen watched Maddox sit there.

“No,” Hess went on. “You wanted that bust all to yourself. Golden boy comes home, makes good. I like the psychology of you UC guys. The homo hidden-life thing. This is your big coming-out party, isn’t it. You’re out of the cake now. Big splash.”

Hess turned and looked at Bryson, as though checking to make sure he was watching. In doing so, Hess discovered Cullen. “You. You were at my homicide scene. You DA?”

Cullen attempted an introduction, Hess ignoring his outstretched hand.

“You’re his leash?”

Cullen said, “I have oversight of the Mitchum County Drug Task Force. Looks like we had two investigations on parallel tracks that intersected last night.”

“Last night, bullshit. They intersected with Sinclair. That was the time to tell me.” Hess turned back to continue dressing down Maddox. “Before your investigation cross-infected mine.”

Cullen said, “We had a CI implicating local law enforcement in corruption, misconduct, abuse of power, and possible narcotics involvement.”

“Sinclair? Your confidential informant is a killer. I hope you don’t expect me to keep quiet about that fact.”

“Hold on now. Don’t forget, we’re the aggrieved party here, in terms of results. Your suspect killed our collar. Our huge collar. You know anything about methamphetamines, Trooper? Crystal meth?”

“That’s the next big scare drug? The one that’s going to hollow out our cities, turn children into prostitutes, grandmothers into gang-bangers?”

Cullen said, “This is the one.”

“I’ll be sure to head for the hills, just as soon as I catch my killer.”

“Meth isn’t just a ghetto drug or a city drug. It’s backyard. It’s everywhere. It eats away entire communities—”

“Save the horror stories for your constituents. All I want from you, right now, is a time line. This whole Sinclair thing from A to Z. Along with whatever else you’ve been holding back.”

“Simple,” said Cullen, transferring his folder from one armpit to the other. “You know that Sinclair was assaulted by Pail during a DUI stop.”

“And pled out to a nickel license suspension with no prison time in return for dropping assault charges and civil claims,” said Hess. “He got his deal. So why would he flip and start working for you?”

“He had a grudge, he had information — some. He brought it to us. That’s why we believed him. Because he had nothing to gain. It was the mention of meth that made us really jump. That scourge, burning up the rural West and Midwest for some time, is all but unknown here. Thing is, even he didn’t know the extent of it. He figured maybe the Pail brothers were taking a cut somehow, looking the other way.”

Hess, having calmed down somewhat, looked at Maddox. “You would meet with him?”

“That’s right,” said Maddox.

“How often?”

“Nothing regular. Now and then. He would page me.”

“That’s how you communicated.”

“We issued him a pager,” explained Cullen.

“Are you his lawyer?” Hess snapped, and Cullen held up his hands and backed away. Hess continued with Maddox. “Has he been in touch with you since he disappeared?”

“Of course not.”

“‘Of course not,’ sure. Because we’re all on the same team, right? You would have run right down here and told me. Professional courtesy.” Hess frowned hard, looking like every gym teacher Cullen had ever hated. “When was the last time you two met?”

“A week before he disappeared.”

“What’d he tell you? What was his attitude?”

“He was using. He was tweaked up.”

“But you didn’t bust him.”

Maddox scoffed; Hess knew better. “I told him he was a fuckup and I walked out. He did page me several days later. A Friday, could have been the day he disappeared. Set up another meet for that next week.”

“Where?”

“The top of the falls. Where we always met.”

“Sounds romantic.”

“The river runs about a half mile back of my mother’s property. I could walk there. No one would see us.”

Hess was satisfied but still smarting. “For the record, I was right about Sinclair. He did stay. Right here, in this area. Now we step it up big-time. Sweep through this place, flush him out fast.”

Maddox said, “One man’s death is another man’s resurrection.”

Hess looked at Maddox with something close to amazement. Even Cullen was a little shocked at Maddox saying that.

Hess said, “We really don’t like each other, do we?”

“You’ve been tripping over your shoelaces this entire investigation.”

“Thanks to you tying them together.” Hess checked Cullen, as though to say, You believe this guy? “You still don’t think it’s your boy, do you?”

Maddox said, “That last page to me, he indicated he was onto something. That he had something for me, which was unusual, because ten out of our total maybe twelve meetings were bullshit. Most of the work here I did on my own.”

“So what was he good for, then? What did he give you?”

Maddox, instead of answering him, stood up quickly. As though he had just now found himself sitting inside a jail cell. “Oh, fuck.”

“What?” said Cullen.

“Wanda.” Maddox looked at Cullen with true alarm, that of a man who had overlooked something of critical importance. “Pail’s girlfriend — sort of. She was dealing for him. And using.” He put his cap back on his head, moving past Hess.

Hess said after him, “Whoa, hold on.”

But Maddox didn’t lose a step, walking right out the door into the chaos of the station.

Hess looked at Bryson, sharing his disbelief, then turned his glare on Cullen, as though Maddox were his fault.

Cullen patted the air between them in an appeal for patience, his tone turning confidential. Covering for Maddox was covering for himself. “Look, he had a thing go bad on him, his last assignment.”