The Killing Moon: A Novel

by Chuck Hogan

  Long black hair.

  She remembered now.

  Sinclair.

  She screamed. And screamed. And shrank away from the mouth.

  64

  MADDOX

  YES—HE HAD LEFT it open. He rushed between Tracy's pickup and the side of the garage where the storage shelves were. Old tools, baby food jars of nails and screws, twine and tape—

  Clothesline. From when his mother used to hang out wet sheets in the backyard, a hundred years ago. He would play hide-and-seek in them with her.

  He grabbed it, and a knob-handled, needle-bladed scratch awl—the sharpest, nearest thing he could find—and ran back out into the rain. He raced to the hole in the yard, sliding the last several feet over the soaked grass like a runner going for third, yelling down to her.

  She was just a floating face now. The effluent up to her ears, her arms reaching for him.

  "He's up there!" she screamed. "Look out!"

  Maddox scanned the front yard, the adjacent wetlands, the house. She was delirious. They were alone.

  He knotted a loop and lowered the rope into the riser. Tracy pulled one wrist through, gripping the line, and he braced his feet against the mud around the rim. He hauled her up, hand over hand, the clothesline burning his palms and bloody fingers.

  She emerged from the narrow hole, head and shoulders, clawing at the grass with her sludge-streaked hands like a corpse from a grave. She kicked her dripping legs free and then, saved, collapsed onto him, slimy and foul-smelling, squeezing him tight.

  She twisted around, amazed to see his house in the dark rain, the hole in the yard. She was bewildered as to how she had gotten there. Maddox helped her to her feet and was pulling the rope off her arm when Tracy screamed.

  Ripsbaugh, wig hair flying, came running at them across the yard with his spade in his hands.

  Maddox shoved Tracy aside. He rushed Ripsbaugh just as the shovel came around, Maddox avoiding the blade, the wooden handle cracking against his raised left arm and sending him sprawling over the open tank cap.

  "Run!" he yelled to Tracy. But she was already doing that.

  Ripsbaugh appeared over him, shovel raised. Maddox rolled away just as the blade buried itself sideways in the wet turf where his head had been. He scrambled to his feet as Ripsbaugh pulled the spade from the sucking ground. Ripsbaugh lunged and swung, and Maddox, off balance, thought he was far enough away.

  The dirty blade sliced through the meat of his upper left thigh, a gouge of pain that spun Maddox sideways, dropping him to one knee.

  Ripsbaugh reset himself, eyes determined as he wound up for a beheading shot.

  The clothesline lay on the grass around Ripsbaugh's feet. Maddox grabbed the loose ends and yanked back.

  Ripsbaugh's legs came up, crashing him to the ground, his head smacking back.

  Maddox, grunting in pain, pulled the awl from his back pocket and buried it deep in Ripsbaugh's left thigh, to the bone.

  Ripsbaugh's howl was monstrous. His leg kicked so violently that Maddox lost his grip on the knob. Maddox looked up just in time to see the blunt top end of the shovel handle coming at his face.

  It struck him full in the cheek, snapping back his head. He brought his hand up to cover the point of impact and felt the left side of his face droop, the bones cracked and loose inside.

  Ripsbaugh was writhing and trying to get up, the knob of the awl jutting from his thigh. He still had the shovel. Maddox had nothing but a broken face and a bad leg.

  Tracy.

  Maddox got to his feet and took off, each step a burst of flame, hobbling hard to the other side of the house, opposite the direction in which Tracy had run. He looked back with his hand covering his face and saw Ripsbaugh with the awl blade out of his thigh, limping after him, shovel in hand.

  Tracy was free. That was all that mattered. Whatever happened now, no one else would die needlessly because of him.

  65

  TRACY

  TRACY RAN BLINDLY INTO the driveway, right past Donny's patrol car before stopping. She turned back and saw Sinclair in the front lawn, limping badly after Donny around the far end of the house.

  The driver's door was unlocked. She jumped inside, slamming it shut after her, locking it with her slimy fingers, reaching across for the passenger door and locking that one too.

  No keys. She saw the radio under the dash and picked up the handset and ran her disgusting hands over the knobs.

  Nothing. Then she saw the on/off switch.

  The dial lit up white, reassuring lights blinking red and green.

  She held the handset with both hands so it wouldn't slip away like a bar of soap and she pressed down the talk button and yelled for help.

  "Who is this?" came the radio voice, angry.

  She met fire with fire, blasting her name back at him.

  "The missing Tracy Mithers?" said the voice.

  She told them where she was. She told them Sinclair was there and he was chasing Don Maddox. Don Maddox, the state police trooper.

  "Stay right where you are," said the voice.

  She eased up on the handset and it slipped to the floor. She checked all the door locks again, and the windows, making sure she was sealed in. She looked back at the radio and noticed a panel of switches above it. With her mucky fingers, she flicked every one of them.

  Blue lights blazed across the house and the driveway. The siren screamed.

  She saw something in the rearview mirror then. Just her own hair. She twisted the glass down so that she could fully see herself, and her screaming nearly topped the wail of the siren.

  66

  HESS

  HESS WENT RACING through the station. "Get that chopper in the air!" he yelled at Bryson.

  The STOP team was lying about on the front porch, kicking back, rifles dangling from their shoulders. The leader sat up as Hess went past with his Sig drawn.

  "A UC in town," said Hess. "He's State. Sinclair's at his house right now." As Hess hit the driveway, he yelled back over his shoulder, "He's one of ours!"

  67

  RIPSBAUGH

  RIPSBAUGH PUSHED THROUGH the trees after Maddox. His thigh was screaming at him to stop—goddamn awl hurt more coming out than going in—but Maddox was hurt too, and unarmed, and just a few trees ahead. Ripsbaugh had lost the awl when he stumbled in the backyard, but he still had his shovel, its grip and weight as familiar to his hands as any tool could be to a man. He held it ahead of him, swatting branches aside and dragging his leg along as fast as he could.

  There was still time. Time to finish this, and do it right. The llama farmer was gone, but she didn't know it was him. She only knew Sinclair.

  Finish Maddox, then get back to the house. Wipe down that window frame in the upstairs bedroom, get rid of the handprint. Then tidy up the rest, seal the septic tank outside, haul the machine away before the police came. And find Maddox's gun. And the bloody awl.

  Much work to be done. But he could still get away. Everything else said Sinclair. Still enough time for everything to be all right. To finish this. For Val.

  All of Ripsbaugh's secrets would die with Maddox.

  The sudden peal of the cop siren spun him around. He saw blue lights through the trees. Police.

  Couldn't be. Not yet.

  No—Maddox's patrol car.

  The girl.

  For the first time, Ripsbaugh felt things slipping away. He realized that all his good work here might come to nothing in the end.

  He stood looking back and forth, torn between the house, where the incriminating evidence still needed to be destroyed, and the snapped-branch trail left by Maddox, who had wronged him. Who had wronged his wife.

  A vision swam into his mind's eye: Val on all fours, looking back at Maddox grunting over her. Her eyes heavy-lidded with confusion and pain and desire.

  Protect Val. Kill the secrets.

  With a howl of determination, Ripsbaugh launched forward, pulling himself tree by tree after Maddox.

 
68

  MADDOX

  CRASHING THROUGH THE woods with his galloping limp was less like running than controlled falling. His sliced leg was warm and rubbery, but somehow saw him through. Maddox protected his broken face with his hand, branches and briars pulling and slashing at him: one lash for every lie he had ever told, for every person he had ever deceived or put at risk.

  The woods opened to a broad clearing, the Cold River flowing left-right, swift with fresh runoff. Its banks were rugged, lined with current-smoothed stones all the way to the edge of the falls.

  The clouds were breaking up overhead, the rain ending. The full moon peering through, bleak and glowing like a nightmare sun, transforming the river into a vein of silver.

  Maddox looked back at the trees. Ripsbaugh came hobbling out, closer to him than Maddox would have guessed. He was using his shovel as a crutch, his wig hair jerking behind his head with each hop.

  Maddox gimped along the slick stones. No chance of crossing the Cold: too wide, too deep, too fast. He heard the unsuspecting water, which had coursed so proudly out of the highlands and down the broad river basin, howl with betrayal as it launched over the precipice into the brink. Wading any deeper than knee-high would mean getting sucked in by the current and whisked over the edge.

  He had no strength for another run into the trees. This was where it had to happen. Maddox searched the ground for good-sized stones to throw, removing his hand from his sagging face, waiting for Ripsbaugh with his back to the river.

  Ripsbaugh came up to the bank of stones. Branches had ripped open his black-cotton sleeves and shoulders, revealing shiny skin; Ripsbaugh wearing full latex coating underneath. The wig had shifted back from his forehead, steaming body heat escaping from the cap, giving his peeling face the effect of a smoking skull.

  Ripsbaugh eased off his shovel, gripping it like a weapon now, turning it over and over in his hands. Rocks versus shovel. Ripsbaugh had the advantage, but not at that distance.

  Maddox hurled stones at him. One after another, any he could get his hands on, but baseball-sized rocks if he had a choice. He couldn't get as much speed on them as he wanted, throwing almost one-leggedly. But they went fast enough that Ripsbaugh could not protect himself or bat them away with the shovel, taking blows in the gut and arms, one sharp-edged rock opening the side of his neck.

  Ripsbaugh had to overcommit. Shielding his face with his arm, he came staggering at Maddox over the wet stones. Maddox closed him up with a rock to the midsection, then lunged as hard as his bad leg permitted, shoving Ripsbaugh off balance.

  Ripsbaugh went over sideways, holding on to the shovel with one hand. Maddox started kicking that hand with his boot heel, from a squatting position so that the thrusting strength came from his arms braced against the stones behind him, not his other leg.

  Ripsbaugh, unable to rise, could not protect his shovel hand. Maddox battered and crushed his knuckles until his fingers gave up the grip. The shovel clacked off a few stones, the blade dipping into the water, tasting it like a steel tongue. Ripsbaugh grabbed after it, but too late. The current seized the tool by the blade, snatching it away from his reach, rushing it out to the edge and over.

  Maddox got one more good kick in, to Ripsbaugh's ribs, before Ripsbaugh caught his boot, twisting his leg and throwing Maddox backward against submerged river rocks. Maddox tried to right himself but could not get any traction on the slippery stones. So he crabbed backward, dragging his own bad leg as Ripsbaugh pursued him on his, hunched over, furious and determined.

  Maddox felt something through the ground. A thumping, a vibration. Like the pounding bass beat of distant music.

  A helicopter crested over the precipice of the falls. The State Police Air Wing search-and-rescue unit. Ripsbaugh stiffened, hearing the bird but not daring to turn around. Wet wig hair hung over the latex peeling off his face, his eyes flaring.

  He knew. There was no getting away now.

  "Give up, Kane," yelled Maddox over the noise.

  Ripsbaugh stared at his empty, shredded hands, hope gone like the shovel over the edge of the falls. He had nothing left to lose.

  He curled his tattered hands into fists and came hard after Maddox. Maddox kicked, but Ripsbaugh caught him by the ankle and, with great strength, began dragging him over the lumpy stones, into the river.

  Maddox felt the current start to pull. Delirious pain as his bad leg bumped over the stones, water whipping into his face from the approaching Air Wing's rotor wash.

  He saw land behind Ripsbaugh brighten as the helicopter swung around, its searchlight a cone of immaculate brightness.

  Thirty-million candlepower. That was what Cullen had said. Chased the coyotes out of the Borderlands.

  Maddox grabbed the last stone before the open water and held on, hugging it close. Ripsbaugh kept hauling on him, lashed by river spray as the spinning helicopter righted itself overhead.

  Maddox shut his eyes, turning away just as the searchlight hit.

  69

  RIPSBAUGH

  RIPSBAUGH WAS ABOUT TO pull him loose when Maddox closed his eyes.

  Closed them like he understood. Like he accepted his fate. Like he would let go of that last rock and they would both wash away together.

  The thought of leaving Val alone in this world emptied him.

  Then the searchlight hit, and everything went white.

  Ripsbaugh blinked. He blinked again but there was no black to go with it, no alteration in the white. The searchlight had burned right through his eyes. He raised his hurt hand to cover his face, but much too late.

  Maddox kicked hard, shaking loose of Ripsbaugh's grip. Ripsbaugh started to fall, the river already pulling on his legs. The bad one gave way, and he grabbed blindly after Maddox, at where Maddox had been.

  He caught hold of something. Something smooth. The toe of Maddox's boot.

  The current sucked at his lower half. The river wanted him. It wanted them both. Hungrily, the water whisked away Sinclair's sneakers from Ripsbaugh's feet. With his other, busted hand he made a lunge for Maddox's ankle, getting a two-handed grip. It was Maddox's bad leg. He could feel Maddox's agony.

  Ripsbaugh lifted his face out of the water, blindly trying to see how close he was to pulling Maddox in with him. That was when the blow struck. A boot tread, crushing him full in the face. His hands released at once, and the water took him fast, sweeping him along like he was nothing, running him out to the edge and over, flushing him away.

  Oh Valerie.

  70

  MADDOX

  CLINGING TO THE RIVER ROCK, Maddox remembered what Dill Sinclair had once said at this same overlook, about people staying back from the edge, not because they were afraid of falling, but because they were afraid of the temptation to leap.

  Ripsbaugh screamed all the way down the falls until the clash and spray pulled him into the pit churning below, the mashing vortex devouring him whole.

  71

  HESS

  THE CRAMPED OFFICE-GARAGE of Cold River Septic was a small, cluttered building set on the edge of Ripsbaugh's property, fed by a dirt lane off the driveway, carved away from the house and yard by a short chain-link fence.

  Searing heat inside at midday, but they couldn't open the windows because of the flies. It wasn't that the place smelled bad inside, it actually smelled too good. The disinfectant Ripsbaugh used on his equipment had a flavored scent, sticky and sweet like cough syrup, drawing the swarming bugs.

  Hess didn't like getting beat. But if he was going to get beat, at least it was by somebody with a real serious fucking game plan and not just some blunderbuss. This guy Ripsbaugh was playing a game no one else could see. Getting arrested in order to clear himself? Psycho balls. And Ripsbaugh hadn't just beat Hess. He'd beat CSS, he'd beat the crime lab in Sudbury. And he'd beat Maddox.

  "So this liquid latex," said Hess, silence killing him like the heat. "That's a new one."

  Maddox, forthcoming on every other aspect of the murders and the man who
had committed them, remained stubbornly circumspect regarding Ripsbaugh's character. Crazy people have crazy motives, but Ripsbaugh's rationale—cleaning up his beloved town by creating this bogeyman killer to mobilize the residents and bring down the corrupt cops—seemed ambitious in the extreme. Maddox might have been holding something back. Because of some lingering sense of trauma, after all he had been through, the beating he'd given and taken. Or, and this was Hess's gut, maybe it was something a little more personal. Something between him and Ripsbaugh, like pity for the guy. Or, God forbid, something like respect.