The Killing Moon: A Novel

Two doors down the curved hallway, they entered the warm, white hospital room. Cullen had met Pinty only once, six months ago, at the start of all this, and the man whose hand he shook then resembled not at all the sleeping ghost he visited now. His lips were slack around the tube in his mouth, flesh sagging off his proud jaw. The large headboard looked like an uncarved headstone, and Maddox, standing at the foot of the bed, an early mourner. The old man's hairpiece, Cullen guessed, was in a plastic bag inside the nightstand drawer. No such thing as dignity in death. Not that Cullen ever saw.

Maddox said, looking down at the old man, "Blood clots broke loose from his legs. Lodged in his brain and possibly his heart. He had a series of small strokes, but they won't know the damage until he regains consciousness. 'Until and unless,' they say."

"You blame the stress?"

"I do."

Cullen dropped into the padded chair that flattened out into Maddox's night bed. A yellow plastic tray held his uneaten lunch. Maddox must have told them he was family. That was his cover here.

"I could get those guys right this minute if I wanted," Maddox said. "Multiple counts of harassment, excessive use of force, abuse of power. All sorts of bullshit they could worm their way around in court with lawyers stalling and all that. No. When I get them, they're going to know they've been gotten." He looked down at the old man. "I'll cut them so deep, everything's going to come pouring out."

Maddox was vengeful now. Triple the motivation.

Cullen chewed his lip thoughtfully. "Just one more question, then."

Maddox didn't look up. "What's that?"

"Where the hell is Sinclair?"

30

TRACY

DONNY SAT NEXT TO HER in her old Ford pickup. He was quiet most of the way, but not silent, not morose. More anxious than anything. She guessed that it was his having just left Pinty for the first time. If anything happened to Pinty while he was gone, it would be like his mother all over again.

The week's groceries she had bought for her mother as an excuse for this midday excursion to Rainfield knocked around in plastic bags behind the seat. They passed a slumping barn with a faded HAY FOR SALE sign leaning against a decaying tractor set out as yard art. Back in Black Falls, they picked up the Cold River running along Main. Across the street from the mailbox reading RIPSBAUGH was a state police cruiser.

"Kind of creepy," Tracy said, "having them in town. A little like an occupation." She watched the whip-antennaed cruiser shrinking in her rearview mirror. "They've been following him everywhere. The one time I saw them, heading up toward the highway department garage, it was like a little parade."

"How's he handling it?"

"He was driving straight along like he wasn't even aware. Maybe he isn't."

They passed the Falls Diner and the Gas-Gulp-'N-Go, the crumbling mill houses coming into view.

Tracy said, "I heard they found a sex video of his wife and Mr. Frond."

The phrase "sex video" roused him a bit. "No," he said, sitting up, watching Number 8 Road go past. "They were just love letters. High school–type stuff. But with drawings."

"Drawings?"

"She was a good artist in school. Still is, by the look of it."

"Dirty stuff?"

"Or erotic, depending on your point of view."

"Dirty," she said, hoping to cheer him up. "Drawings make more sense to me, anyway." She had imagined an Internet-type video of an older, ponytailed guy and a heavy woman doing it. Ick. "In drawings you can make yourself thinner."

They passed another state police cruiser parked outside the police station and didn't talk again until she pulled into Pinty's white-stone driveway, behind Donny's patrol car. "Thanks," he said. "For the ride, for bringing me my stuff, for everything."

"Wish I could stay with you. But I have to get back, finish up for the day."

He took his leather toiletry bag, the one she had packed for him. How strange it had felt, being inside his house alone. Walking room to room, poking around his bathroom things. He said, "I'm heading in to work soon, anyway."

She touched the cut just under his sideburn, now healed to a nick. "Good luck there."

He nodded. "I don't even know if I can still call myself a policeman here without Pinty to back me up."

"Please be careful."

He kissed her once, lightly, and she pulled him closer for a real one, kissing him longer and better. She rubbed his arm. "I know how much Pinty meant to you," she said, then realized she had spoken in the past tense. "Means to you, sorry."

"He's made fools out of doctors before," said Donny. "He'll be home again."

Tracy smiled and nodded, admiring his stubborn faith though she did not share it. "I know he's all you have."

31

HESS

PALPABLE EXCITEMENT among the uniforms, the duty troopers all extra-alert and garrulous, gobbling up oxygen inside the station; the hunting party anticipating the kill.