The Killing Moon: A Novel

"Kids like their poison sweet. No IDs yet, but we'll track down the parents and phone in the particulars."

"You got it. Have a good one."

Bucky tucked his badge away. "I'll sure try."

16

RIPSBAUGH

RIPSBAUGH PULLED UP on the scene just as Stoddard's mechanic was driving off with the wreck. It looked bad but not fatal. The wound in the tree trunk oozed sap, but it too would survive, though with a good scar.

Maddox stood at his patrol car, arms folded, apart from the layabouts near the pumper and the rescue truck farther up the road. Ripsbaugh pulled around the road flares and angled in next to Maddox's car, silencing the engine and stepping out of the cab. He walked to the back of his truck, his untied bootlaces flicking at his heels.

"Late call," said Maddox, coming over.

Ripsbaugh dropped the rear door. "Usually is."

"Couple of kids, nothing too serious." Maddox glanced at the other cops. "Some glass in the road, along with the fuel."

Ripsbaugh dragged out an open sack of sawdust. He lugged it over and emptied it onto the gasoline spill, then hauled out two buckets of cat litter and shook them on top of that. The blade of his long-handled shovel scraped the pickup bed as he slid it out.

The gas-soaked gravel scooped up like cornmeal and he shoveled it back into the plastic buckets. He kept his head down, working steadily but without haste, as was his manner. He remembered the last car accident he had to clean up—Ibbits, the escaped prisoner—and how Bucky had watched over him as though afraid Ripsbaugh would steal something from the burned wreck. This time Bucky was relaxed, all of them loitering by the pumper, prolonging the accident call into an extra hour's pay.

Ripsbaugh pretended not to notice them, in the same way he generally pretended not to notice anyone, work being a cloak of invisibility he pulled over himself. Ullard was drunk as usual, nodding off against the front tire, and Stokes drew a laugh by kicking him over. Bucky took a drag off a stubby cigarette and, with his patented Pail grin, pretended to launch the lit butt at Ripsbaugh and the fuel-sodden sand.

The others snickered hard. Ripsbaugh continued scraping his shovel like he hadn't noticed.

"Hey, Buck," said Eddie, sitting on the rear bumper of the rescue truck, looking to impress his younger brother. "Remember that high school janitor? The one with the crazy walleye?"

Bucky said, "The one I pulled the firecracker stunt on."

"Every time some freshman girl coughed up her macaroni, he'd come in wheeling his bucket of slosh, sprinkle that odor-eating powder on the mess, and mop it up. Frigging thirty years he was there, mopping up kiddie spew once a week. What a life."

Bucky said, "Seems to me that black folk, when they mop up, usually whistle a happy tune."

The others laughed aggressively, Eddie harder than anyone. "Hey, Kane," Eddie said, emboldened. "Know any tunes to pass the time?"

Ripsbaugh slowed the rhythm of his road scraping to a stop. With both hands resting comfortably on the handle of the shovel, he stood there, looking at them all. Nothing threatening in his manner. Nothing in his face. Just him leaning on his shovel, standing, staring.

Their chuckling petered out, the sneer draining from their smiles, faces going soft and empty. All except Bucky, who kept up his tomcat grin. He didn't back down, but he didn't say anything else either.

Ripsbaugh finished his shoveling and began hauling the heavy buckets back to his truck. Maddox was there and helped him load them in one at a time, the old truck's springy suspension dipping a bit under the weight. Ripsbaugh pulled out a broom and a large paper bag and returned to the roadside by the gouged oak, sweeping up chunks of windshield.

Maddox followed. The cops were packing to leave, trying to rouse Ullard. Maddox said, "Val tell you I stopped by earlier?"

Ripsbaugh said, without looking up or breaking pace, "She did."

"Seemed like I might have upset her. I hope not."

"She upsets easily these days."

"I was looking for Dill."

"She said that. Building up probable cause, I suppose."

Maddox paused. "Building up what?"

Ripsbaugh kept right on sweeping. "I figure you want to get inside his place. Legally, you can't just walk in. Even a sex offender's got rights. So you establish a threshold of suspicion. That's how you build it."

Maddox was interested. "Go on."

"There was a case like this on Court TV a month or so back. You have to get a family member to say that he's missed an appointment, or that someone's worried about his health. Or a neighbor to say he hasn't been cutting his lawn. Make it a public safety issue. That's your in."

"I see," said Maddox. "Probable cause."

"I figured maybe that was what you were going for."

"You a crime buff?"

"I watch all those shows."

The pumper and the rescue truck engines started, backing up beeping into the road, Maddox following the vehicles with his eyes until they pulled away. "Maybe you should have been made cop here, not me."