The Killing Moon: A Novel

by Chuck Hogan

  This was parade day, after all. Two hundred and fifty years of incorporation, and that wasn't a birthday to let slip by unacknowledged. His hope that such an event might invigorate the town had already been dashed: the parade had started, and the center of town still didn't seem ready for it. So many bare patches along the sidewalks that families should have been filling. But then the Cub Scouts came marching, with their troop flag and their den mothers, and all Pinty could do was smile.

  The other two selectmen followed: Parker Harris, the elementary school principal, pulling a boom box in a red Radio Flyer wagon, playing a Sousa march; and Bobby Loom, known as Big Bobby, proprietor of the Gas-Gulp-'N-Go, the minimart filling station a half mile west on Main. Big Bobby was scattering wrapped bubble gum and Dum Dums to the children. Pinty would have been out there with them as the third town selectman, were it not for his hips. He tap-tapped his cane nub on the sidewalk as they marched past.

  Pinty saw Donny Maddox coming toward him along the sidewalk and felt a lift similar to the one he'd experienced looking up at the flag. Hope, mainly. But Pinty had learned in life not to hope too hard.

  Donny stopped next to him, facing the parade. "Not up to it today?"

  "Today's a good day," said Pinty, patting his hip. "Not a bad day."

  "How about a chair?"

  "Never would get up out of it."

  "I'd have built a float for you, if I'd known. Sit you up there on a throne."

  "I would like that. That's about my style."

  "This town should throw you a parade. They will, someday." Donny crossed his arms, implacable behind his sunglasses. "They better."

  Pinty smiled, not at Donny's words, but at his respect. "Two hundred fifty years," he said, gesturing at the parade like a symphony conductor demanding more out of an orchestra. "Older than the country itself. A hell of a long time."

  "Maybe too long," said Maddox.

  "Think of what all this land looked like to the colonists and trappers who first walked down from the hills."

  Maddox said, "Think of what the colonists and trappers must have looked like to the Pequoigs already settled here."

  That was Donny's habit, his role, the town contrarian. Pinty never took it seriously, this rebelliousness Donny had held on to since his teens. Donny always thought he was too big for Black Falls. And when he was younger, he was right. He'd won the college scholarship, and everybody expected big things. Now, fifteen years later, he was back, and nobody knew what to make of him.

  The town plow sander came rumbling along, sputtering its diesel exhaust. Black Falls' two major municipal purchases in the past decade were: the new flag and pole, after 9/11; and the fork-bladed plow. No town in the Cold River Valley could survive winter without one of these immense road clearers.

  Above the BLACK FALLS HIGHWAY DEPT. stenciled into the driver's side door sat Kane Ripsbaugh, his bare, sun-chapped elbow jutting through the open window as he kept the angry-looking plow at an even five miles an hour. The word "highway" used to be defined as any public way, and showed that the department and its facilities—the garage farther east on Main, the salt and sand sheds, the town dump—dated back to the early days of the automobile.

  Ripsbaugh was the one-man highway department, a position he had held for the last three decades. Some, such as Donny, would say that Ripsbaugh's longevity was due to the job offering hard, physical work for little pay and zero prestige. But Pinty viewed Ripsbaugh's role as an honorable one, and knew that Ripsbaugh did too. A town like Black Falls could not get by without a Kane Ripsbaugh. He was as day-to-day instrumental in its upkeep as was Pinty, though the two men could not have been more different. It was funny, to Pinty, how withdrawn Ripsbaugh was, that a man so devoted to his community could be so indifferent to his neighbors at the same time.

  So it was indeed possible to love a place and not necessarily adore its people. This was something Pinty needed to communicate more successfully to Donny.

  Donny said, "You notice who's missing this morning?"

  Pinty turned right away, looking down to the end of the parade route, the junction of Main and Number 8 Road. The house on the corner there was divided into twin apartments upstairs and down, with the upstairs tenant, who was also the owner, having the advantage of a large balcony built above the front door.

  That was where Dillon Sinclair usually stood, leaning against the iron rail, dressed all in black like an undertaker, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and watching the town pass below him.

  Pinty noted the look of concern on Donny's face. Pinty said, "It's not like him to miss a parade."

  Black Falls was currently home to nine registered sex offenders, four Level 2s and five of the more dangerous Level 3s. This was a regional concern. Publicity generated by the sex offender registry was effectively chasing offenders from more populated, organized, and affluent towns into smaller, remote communities. Nine out of the top ten Massachusetts communities in sex offenders per resident were rural towns far west of Boston. Out of 351 total cities and towns statewide, tiny Black Falls ranked eighth.

  Dell Stoddard went rolling past in his prized 1969 yellow Mustang convertible sponsored by Stoddard's Auto Body, playing loud surfing music that in no way jibed with the mood of the moment or of the town. Two women in sun hats made their way along the sidewalk toward Pinty, Paula Mithers under a wide, curled brim of straw, followed by her grown daughter, Tracy, sporting a beat-to-hell cowgirl-style number. The mother wore a gardening shirt, Bermuda shorts, and muck boots fresh from the barn. The daughter wore an oversized T-shirt knotted at the waist and cutoff jean shorts, her knees and elbows grayed with dry mud.

  The Mithers women raised llamas on a little farm over on Sam Lake. Middle-aged Paula had a face most would describe as handsome, etched with deep lines by sun and divorce, while twenty-two-year-old Tracy was sun-freckled and slim, petite yet somehow leggy, blond hair washing out of the back brim of her cowgirl hat.

  "Hi, Chief Pinty," said Tracy.

  "Not 'Chief,' Tracy," said Pinty, correcting her gently. "Just Pinty."

  She nodded and turned to smile at Donny. "Hi."

  Pinty said, "You know Donny, right?"

  "I know Donny," she said, and they shook hands, a loose-gripped, formal up-and-down. Donny was the first to let go, but Tracy was the first to look away.

  Paula waved for Pinty's attention. A deaf woman, she signed angrily, hands picking apart the air as though arranging her words letter by letter on an invisible board.

  Pinty turned to Tracy, who looked sheepish and almost teenager-disappointed in her mother. She translated flatly: "'Aren't you going to do something about this?'"

  Pinty looked back at Paula. "About what?"

  Then he heard the Indian cry. It was the Black Falls Police Department come marching. Bucky Pail led the way, showing off an antique musket to the crowd and exhorting their cheers, while brother Eddie and the three others followed in tow, each gripping one handle on a rescue stretcher bearing a cigar store Indian. It was the wooden statue that greeted customers at Big Bobby's Gas-Gulp-'N-Go, adorned now with a headdress of turkey feathers and bandaged in ketchup-stained gauze.

  Some spectators joined in the jeering salute, though most, like Pinty, watched in stunned silence. He felt Donny stiffen next to him and reached out to hook his arm just as Donny started to move, holding him back.

  "Don't," Pinty said.

  Maddox held still, watched them pass. Pinty released his arm and returned both hands to the grip of his walking stick. He absorbed the ridiculous display because he had to, using it to feed his inner resolve, as he knew it was feeding Donny's.

  How had things gone so wrong since his retirement? The police department's troubles began in earnest with the passing of Pinty's successor, Cecil Pail, who looked like Johnny Cash but died like Elvis Presley, of a massive coronary inside the station john three years ago. Pail was by and large a good man, but foolish and half blind when it came to his sons, Bucky and Eddie, whom he indulged. He ha
d elevated his boys to the only remaining full-time positions on the shrinking force, in part to keep a closer eye on them. Pinty and the other selectmen refused to promote from within, yet were unable to attract a suitable replacement at the salary offered, to a town with no budget for police uniforms. So the chief 's position remained vacant, and into this vacuum of power had risen Bucky Pail, with his brother at his right hand.

  They stopped to rest in the middle of the intersection of Main and Mill, standing the bloodied Indian right out in front of the station, below the flag. Stokes swapped his ball cap and sunglasses for the headdress of turkey feathers, and the rest of them amused themselves posing for pictures like jackasses.

  Pinty saw parents turning their kids away from the vulgar effigy.

  "Pinty," said Donny.

  Pinty squeezed the handle of his walking stick and shook his head. "If I can take it," he said, "you can too."

  Tracy Mithers looked at them, confused. Her mother signed something, her daughter refusing to translate it until Paula Mithers clapped and pointed angrily at Pinty and Donny.

  Tracy could not look at either of them. "My mother says to say that you are both a disgrace."

  Pinty watched Donny's eyes go dead. Pinty tried to grab his arm again, but it was too much for Donny, seeing Pinty's honor suffer like that. He pulled away and started off the curb toward the jackasses, Pinty calling after him, "Donny," and then once again, as loud as he dared, "Donald."

  If Donny had one weakness, it was him: it was Pinty. What he felt he owed the old man. But Pinty didn't mind playing possum, now that the plan was in action and there was finally some hope. The town had abided these overgrown punks for too long now. Pinty only hoped that Donny didn't let them push him too far too soon.

  6

  MADDOX

  MADDOX WAS TUNNELED IN. Bucky stood a few steps away from the spectacle, eyeballing the parade crowd through his dark shades, the old musket in his hands. Maddox remembered something from a college survey course on twentieth-century history about all despots having in common an innate knack for symbolism.

  Maddox still carried pressure on his elbow from Pinty's surprisingly strong grip as he went up to Bucky and said, "That's enough."

  Bucky looked at him. Maddox was close enough to see his buzzard eyes through the tinted shades. Pure amusement. "You say something, rookie?"

  Bucky's intimidation came less from his size—he was big enough, but no bigger than Maddox—than from his eyes. Carny eyes, Maddox thought, assessing you while his dirty hands ripped your ticket, a guy with nothing in his life except dark thoughts. As a sergeant, Bucky outranked him, Maddox being just an auxiliary patrolman with the minimum 120 hours of in-house training. But Maddox could not stop himself. He could not stand by and let Pinty suffer this indignity. "I said it's time to break it up. Move on."

  Bucky's grin widened. He looked over at the others, including them in this, then checked back once more as though Maddox might be putting him on. "Hey, boys?" said Bucky, speaking through his grin. "Maddox here is shutting us down."

  "You put me on parade security," Maddox said. "This is disturbing the peace. It's time to move along."

  "Disturbing the peace?"

  "You're scaring kids."

  "Scaring kids?" said Bucky, gesturing at the bandaged statue with his musket. "This here's a history lesson." Bucky turned back in such a way that the long, thin barrel of the musket was directed right at Maddox's gut. "This pop gun right here is a genuine Indian killer."

  Maddox grabbed the muzzle and shoved it backward so that the butt of the weapon jabbed Bucky in the ribs, then pointed the muzzle skyward.

  Bucky's eyes flared a moment behind his glasses—as shocked by Maddox's impudence as he was by the speed of his reflexes—lips curling to reveal the savage lurking inside the grin.

  Maddox saw how far he had overstepped then. Bucky shook his grinning head, barely able to contain himself, overwhelmed by this great gift. The chance to belittle and demean Maddox in public. To humble him in the crossroads of Black Falls.

  The others spread out around him, Maddox having nowhere to go. His neck burned, not because he would lose this confrontation, but because he had allowed himself to be drawn into it in the first place. All the station house tensions came bubbling to the surface. He had crossed a line, and things would only get more difficult from here on in.

  "If I got this straight," said Bucky, "you're saying if we don't move our Injun friend here in a timely and forthright manner, you gonna cuff us all and take us in?" His half-clever smile fell away. "All by yourself?"

  Maddox could not back down, and anyway, he wanted this too, more than anyone. He went cap brim to cap brim with Bucky, ready to jeopardize everything just to throw down with these goons.

  A shadow fell across him. Maddox heard the prodding of the walking stick on pavement, and his heart simultaneously rose and fell.

  "Hot one today, isn't it, boys?" said Pinty, appearing at Maddox's right shoulder.

  Behind Bucky, Eddie Pail eased back. Even Bucky's eyes flickered a little, the way a candle does when a door is opened.

  Maddox said, still staring hard at Bucky, "This is nothing, Pinty."

  "Good," said Pinty. "Because it just wouldn't do to have Black Falls' own sworn peacekeepers brawling in the center of town on its two-hundred-fiftieth birthday."

  Bucky pulled off his sunglasses, trying to turn his deep-eyed stare on Pinty, but it got him nowhere. As an elder statesman, Pinty still wielded a bit of moral authority.

  "Now how about showing a little respect for the town and for yourselves," said Pinty, crowbarring Maddox and Bucky apart with his walking stick, "and let's everyone go on his merry way."

  Bucky backed off but his eyes would not let go of Maddox. His look said that someday Pinty wouldn't be around to bail Maddox out.

  Maddox banked that look, and the feeling it left him with, then turned away, part of him charging up like a battery, filling with new resolve. The other part of him remained pissed off, at himself, at the town, and even, he realized, at Pinty. Not for intervening. He was pissed off at Pinty for sticking with this backward town, for being the devoted captain who had to go down with this flooding ship.

  The parade was breaking up now, a sad affair, more funereal than celebratory. Maddox cared little for the future of the town, but he cared about Pinty, who, to his mind, was the town. The aging Greek, seventy-one now, was a physical contradiction: barrel-chested on top and slender on the bottom, his waist and legs too small for the rest of him, carrying his weight like a vest of old muscle. As chief of police and town selectman, he had all but ruled Black Falls for the past quarter century. A benevolent dictator, the kind of man who mattered as much to a place as the place mattered to him. The decay of the police department haunted Pinty, his life's second-greatest disappointment after the early death of his only son. A proud man, and tired, leaning heavily on his oak walking stick, Pinty's last great gambit was to right the course of the police department before it was too late, to take the poison out of the well before it wiped out the entire town.

  With that in mind, the vacancy of the balcony at the corner of Main and Number 8 bothered Maddox like a premonition. "Scarecrow" was the nickname the cops had given to Sinclair, for his thin, unstuffed frame and his ever-present watchfulness over the center of town, looking down from his balcony like a mannequin of rags and straw. Maddox was turning away from the sight of it when he walked right into Ripsbaugh.

  "Kane," said Maddox, startled backward.

  "Went back for your deer this morning," Ripsbaugh said.

  "Oh, right," said Maddox. He saw again the deer's head crack open beneath his boot. "Thanks."

  "Wasn't much left. A hoof, patches of fur and hide. A chunk of leg. The rest was gone."

  "Gone?"

  "Coyotes. Must have gotten to it overnight. They're all over town this year. Got no fear. Keep chewing holes through the dump fence."

  Maddox guessed that there was a Kane Ripsb
augh in every small town in the country. A man indivisible from the landscape, someone you see all the time but never really look at, who would fade away altogether were it not for the rake or shovel in his dirt-browned hands. A constant. A man everybody waves to and nobody knows.