Chuck Hogan - The Killing Moon - A Novel

“He’s a private guy that way.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“I don’t know. You think he has someone else?”

“He’s a Black Falls cop. What do you think?”

“And that’s fine with you.”

“Maybe I got somebody else too.” She tried to wink at him but she had never been very good at winking. “Hey, if I wanted to be married to someone, I’d be married, right? We have something different from that. Something deeper.”

“I’ll bet those are his words exactly.”

“Like partners. Maybe he chases it on the side, but he can only catch so much. I know he doesn’t bring it home with him. No one gets inside his place ’cept me. Why I captivate you so.”

“What’s he do up there on his mountain, he needs so much privacy?”

She moved to the short stone patio before the brick step. “Kiss me and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

Maddox smiled in that way he had, of appraising her, which made her frown and sent her back to working on her nail.

“You seem a little hyped up,” he said. “You eat anything today?”

“I had a Popsicle.”

“That’s not food.”

“Oh, sorry. See, the food stamp people got me and Daddy on this strict twenty-four-dollars-a-month diet.” She tried out a wide, dirty grin. “You want to take me inside, feed me something?”

“I don’t think so.”

She scratched the itch on the back of her neck. “You are such a drag, you know that? It’s just rude, not inviting me inside. Why you so hot for Bucky?”

“I’m not.”

“So hot for him instead of me.”

“Give me a break.”

“So secretive all the time. Talk about privacy.” She shifted posture, her bare knees rubbing. “You’re playing me. You think I don’t know it.”

“Then that means that you’re playing me.”

“No. Because I don’t play.”

“You said you and Bucky are partners. Partners in what?”

“Partners in life.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You know, he was a new cop when I met him. Just like you. Used to cruise by me in his patrol car when I was walking home from school. Kept offering me rides, until I took him up on it.” She smiled. “He liked it on the hood of his patrol car. He was into being a cop when it was new. What about you? You into it still?”

“I’m not that into it.”

She looked him over. “You’re into it, all right. What is it you do there all night at the station by yourself, anyway?”

“Fight crime.”

She snickered. “You’re a bad boy. You are. Act all good, but you’re bad inside, I can see it. You do bad things.”

That hit something in him. Something real. She watched his eyes narrow, and was surprised.

“Maybe your bedroom’s air-conditioned,” she said. “We could go talk in there.”

“No.”

“What are you so afraid of?” She took another step closer to him, her bare feet touching the smooth stone landing, just now starting to feel the day’s journey in her soles. “You know you don’t come around me just for the questions.”

“No?”

“No. The way you look at me sometimes. Not now. Today you’re being kind of a dick. But other times.”

Maddox looked out at the overgrown marsh his house faced, the weeds humming with bugs. “I guess maybe you remind me of someone.”

She was shocked to get any water out of this stone. “All right. Now it comes out. Now we’re getting somewhere. Not your mother, I hope.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“First love? College sweetheart? Old girlfriend?”

“Just someone I knew.”

“And she’s dead now?”

He showed surprise at her insight. Even Wanda was a little impressed with herself.

“So come on, then,” she said, moving closer still. His sneakers were flat on the landing, his bent legs bunching up his package in between. She reached out and touched his bare knee. “Let’s start up the old air conditioner. Go for a spin on my pink bike. What do you say?”

Maddox stood, a head taller than she, so that her hand fell from his knee. “I have to get ready for work now.”

“It’s personal, this thing between you and Bucky. I can tell. So what better way to fuck him over?” She reached for his shorts over his thighs, wanting to run her hand up inside.

Maddox shook his head. “It’s not like that.”

“Of course it is. The ultimate get-back. You can’t fuck him so you fuck the one he fucks. Believe me — he would jump all over your girl. If you had one.”

Maddox’s hand guided hers away from his shorts with a firm grip. “Maybe you don’t realize what an ugly thing that is to say.”

Wanda could only smile at the chill she felt, brought on by her discovery. “You do have a girl?”

Maddox reached out and pulled the sunglasses off her face. It was confusing because she had forgotten she was even wearing sunglasses, and so the change in light disoriented her. A pair she had borrowed from Bucky, too big for her face.

“Good Christ,” said Maddox.

“Give those back.”

“When was the last time you slept?”

She squinted, nearly blind, the day so bright. “Sleeping alone is so boring.”

“Look at me.”

She couldn’t. Her eyes were stinging and watering over.

He handed back her glasses. She put them on and waited until she could see him good again. He was looking at her forearm. The sweatbands. He reached for her wrist, and she pulled back before he could touch it.

He didn’t like that.

“You listen now,” he said. “Don’t ever come to my house again. But especially don’t think you can hit up and then come by. That’s not how I live here. You want me to bust you right now?”

“Oh, that would be good. Yeah, go ahead. Rookie cop busting his sergeant’s girl.”

“You want to talk, and I mean talk, you page me. You have the number. Otherwise you wait for me to get in touch with you. Understood?”

“Understood,” she said back at him, with sixth-grade petulance. She took out some aggression swatting at a fly buzzing around her head. “So, what, am I even going to get a ride back home?”

He looked at her like she knew better.

“Hard-ass,” she said. “Can I at least use your bathroom first? I’m serious, the toilet’s stopped up at my dad’s. The plumbing quit — I’m serious. He dug a latrine outside last night. Don’t make me pee in the woods. Pretty please? You can wait out here, where it’s safe.”

Maddox stepped aside. “Make it fast,” he said.

She curtsied and flipped him off and walked up the steps past him.

Tracy Mithers saw Donny Maddox out in front of his house, so she left her pickup in the driveway rather than use the remote garage door opener he had given her. She followed the flagstones to where he waited with his hands in his pockets, a tank shirt baring his arms, shorts baring his legs.

My man.

Seeing him at the parade that morning and not being able to talk to him was murder, and how the day had dragged on since. The hours she stole each week to be with him were her life now. The rest of the time was just waiting. She wanted to bound up to him and leap into his arms, but something about the way he was standing outside alone in the sun slowed her.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

He shook his head, a strange look on his face, a tension. He glanced at his screen door. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “But I don’t know if you’ll agree.”

“Okay,” she said, still smiling but confused. “What does that mean?”

“Remember what I said to you when we first started this? That I would be straight with you? That I would never lie to you, no matter what?”