The Killing Moon: A Novel

by Chuck Hogan

  Maddox heard something, though. A low, doglike growling coming from the other side of the car, where the trees began to crowd in. He moved around the front bumper with his light, stopping fast.

  His beam found a dog pulling at something with its teeth. Not a dog at all, but a coyote, tearing hungrily at a man's face. The face was eaten open to muscle and cartilage, chewed back to the ears and around a full set of crooked teeth. The naked corpse lay on its belly in the dirt, arms behind its back, its wrists handcuffed.

  The coyote turned slow, lupine eyes reflecting Maddox's light. It backed off a few steps, baring bloody teeth as though flashing the grin it had just eaten off Bucky Pail's face. Then, resentful yet unashamed, it slunk away along a narrow path back into the trees.

  PART IV

  MANHUNT

  46

  CULLEN

  CULLEN FOUND MADDOX sitting on a slab inside one of the two holding cells where Bucky Pail should have been locked up now. "I've been looking all over."

  Maddox's head was back against the wall, his cap in his hands in his lap. He looked very much like a man doing time. "Only quiet place in the station."

  He was right about that. Cullen closed the outer door on the clamor. "We need to talk. We could be in some deep shit here. You saw the handcuffs. Just like Pail handcuffed him when he beat him up."

  Maddox closed his eyes, nodded.

  "I just came from there. Saw Hess, but ducked him. Guy's in his glory now. The blood trail starts inside the front door. Then into the kitchen, where Pail's clothes were found, sliced off him along with some skin. That's where he was cuffed and killed. They found the dagger there. The one missing from the witch's house."

  "Athame," Maddox corrected him.

  "Stabbed so hard, the tip was broken off inside him. There was a little toaster oven pulled out, and a squeeze bottle of mustard on the counter. They think Pail had been making some sort of lunch when Sinclair arrived, using a paper towel as a plate. They found flecks of paper inside the corpse's teeth. The thinking is that Sinclair, before dragging the body outside, stuffed the greasy paper in Pail's mouth in order to draw animals."

  Maddox offered no response, turning his cap over and over in his hands like thoughts inside his head.

  "Look," said Cullen, stepping inside the open cell, "I know this is a blow, but we've got to talk strategy here. Hess is ramping up big. He's got everything he needs, multiple homicides, a killer on the loose. A murdered cop, even if he was dirty. That's an immediate threat, a killer out of control."

  "This is about covering our asses on Sinclair?"

  "We built up a slam-dunk case against Pail. Problem is, our arrestee is dead. And he happened to have been killed by our informant."

  "Small snag."

  "So let's accentuate the positive. On the plus side, everything else is bingo. We're talking a historic drug bust for this region. We've got well-trod paths in the back of Pail's house leading out to a shed and an old camper. Piles of empty cans of lye and driveway cleaner behind them, along with cases of stripped road flares. And lots of bare patches in the scrub where he must have buried waste. He's contaminated acres of his own property. I'd be amazed if those holes don't glow green at night. Two HAZMAT teams are en route. You know that stink they talk about around meth labs, like the piss of an asparagus-eating cat? It was immediate at the shed. I couldn't get any closer than the door, but both structures were meth kitchens, it's plain. The guy had grocery bags full of product stockpiled, and I mean pounds of it, ready to go. At fifteen grand a whack? He's been a busy little beaver. He was starting up a business, the first serious meth franchise in New England. Doing the product launch here in Black Falls. He started off in the shack, and it looks like he cooked there until the place became basically uninhabitable. Also looks like he had a serious fire, which probably occasioned his move to the camper. Jars of pharmaceutical-grade pseudo, the supplier's seals and government warnings still on them, along with the vet iodine. The animal doctor is in some serious shit, but he's not the face on this. Bucky Pail is, and you can't bring a dead man to trial. Except, of course, in the press. Which has been tipped and might even be up there already. Good visuals, the chemicals laid out behind the shack, HAZMAT astronauts removing waste. Oh—and the brother. He showed up while I was there."

  "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."

  "How terrible," said Hess, starting out fast after Maddox. "Cry me a motherfucking river."

  47

  HESS

  THEY TRAILED MADDOX'S clunker of a patrol car into the hills above the town, Bryson driving. Hess had gone after Maddox in anger, but now regretted it, feeling paralyzed in the passenger seat with no phone and nothing to do, the investigation at a stage where it could easily wriggle away from him. With the HAZMAT alert, the situation in Black Falls rated automatic "critical incident" status with the MSP, meaning that the Incident Management Assistance Team—command post specialists in coordinating lost and missing person searches for the Bureau of Tactical Operations—was already on site. It also meant that the Mitchum barracks' Special Emergency Response Team had been rousted, heavily wooded wilderness searches being their specialty. It meant too that the MSP Air Wing Unit was being scrambled, helicopters in the air over Black Falls by noon. Hess had an afternoon of handshaking and name-remembering before him.

  "I wonder if he's in that state forest somewhere," said Hess, looking into the trees blurring past. "A cave or a hollow. Deep in, but close enough to make nighttime excursions into town."

  "Kind of like a gay Rambo."

  Hess's look brought Bryson stammering.

  "No, no, hey, I'm with you, I only meant—"

  "Or else he's holed up in one of these homes." The trees occasionally gave way to secluded cabins and cottages. "Maybe already killed again, and is hiding out."

  Bryson nodded dutifully and drove on.

  "These UC guys, huh?" said Hess, nodding at Maddox's car. "Twitchy. Can't trust them because they see both sides and forget sometimes which one they're on. They develop sympathy for the devil, and in this job having too much compassion is like having too much fear."

  "Ten years undercover," said Bryson. "The guy's won performance awards he couldn't even show up to collect."

  Bryson with stars in his eyes. He had come to Hess highly recommended, but now Hess didn't know.

  They slowed at the intersection of two ropy roads. Maddox pulled up in front of a wreck of a house, the roof moldy, the front screen door torn. The homeowner's solution to either a water leak or critter invasion had been to cap the chimney with an upended blue plastic trash barrel.

  Maddox was out of his car fast. Apprehension was a new look for him. He didn't even react when Hess and Bryson caught up with him inside.

  A grizzled guy in a thin brown bathrobe sat back in a pilled easy chair like slum royalty. Maddox was asking him about this Wanda, and the guy, Bill was his name, sat there like Hugh Hefner's bitter half brother, saying she was sleeping.

  They crowded up the narrow hallway, Maddox pushing the door open on a room with an empty bed. He stripped back the sheets in one motion, something small and light flying out and flitting to the floor beneath a small, three-loop radiator.

  Two small drug bags.

  Maddox pushed past them into the tight hallway and tried another closed door. When the knob didn't turn, he banged on the unpainted wood grain with the flat of his hand, calling her name.

  "Who is that?" came a sleepy voice.

  Hess watched Maddox's head bow with relief. Apparently, he had thought this Wanda was dead. "It's Maddox."

  "What are you doing here?"

  Lots of movement inside. A classic stall.

  Maddox stood in that sideways manner people have of speaking through doors. "I need to see you."

  Water was running. "I'm gonna be a couple of minutes ."

  "Right now."

  "It's your turn to wait for me for a change, how's that? This is lady business in here."

  "Wanda."

  They heard the flush. Hess showed Maddox his impatience.

  "Wanda."

  "Hold your horses."

  "Wanda. I'm going to kick it in."

  The knob had a slot keyhole in its center, and Hess motioned to Bryson for the Leatherman tool he usually carried. Bryson gave it to him and Hess unfolded a knife blade and jiggled it in the knob.

  "I said I'm coming—"

  Hess turned the knob and Maddox pushed in fast through th
e door. Wanda was a string-haired rag doll in terry-cloth shorts, a washed-out Celtics ring tee hanging off her shoulders like a nightshirt on a little sweaty girl. She was bent over the sink as though hiding something, and Hess first thought she was fixing up. But when Maddox turned her around, her hands were empty except for the two damp sweatbands she was pulling on over pad bandaging.

  The white walls of the sink were bloody, and on the rim, near the torn-open box of bandages, were a pair of tweezers and nail clippers, both stained red. The woman's eyes were glassy as she bent to protect her arm, but Maddox, after his initial shock at the sight of the blood, tugged off the sweatbands, and the bandages beneath came away.