The Killing Moon: A Novel

What Hess would remember most about this sour-smelling place was the sheer amount of crank mags stored up in the break room. A mountain of the stuff, had to be a record for a force this tiny. One time he'd had the occasion to visit a firehouse in a midsized town that was using an anatomically correct female mannequin for training exercises as well as other, less official pursuits. That squad was eventually disbanded and reassigned after word got out that they had invited a local stripper to dance on the fire pole during a shift change. Not that Hess had any moral objections to this stuff, but good Christ, there was a time and, more to the point, a place.

Maddox entered the break room looking to store his nylon lunch sack in the fridge. He seemed a little pale to Hess, maybe from worry, like he had lost some weight in the days he had taken off to sit with his friend in the hospital.

Bucky Pail came in on Maddox's heels, grinning like his shirt was on fire and he liked the burn. Until he saw Hess, whose presence was a bucket of cold water. The action on his face flattened out, all that Maddox saw when he turned.

Pail still had the scrape bloom on his cheek, like he had gotten grazed with a boot tread. Maddox's abrasions were far less worse than Hess had been led to believe, and in a strange way it reassured him to know that Maddox hadn't gotten his ass kicked by these hillbillies.

"Some police department," said Hess. "I'm almost sorry to leave it. Almost."

Maddox ignored Hess, looking at Pail. Waiting.

When Hess didn't make any move to exit the room, Pail's grin got hot. "Later," he said to Maddox, with lots of tongue on the L, then turned and went out.

"Five against one," Hess said to Maddox. "You did all right for yourself. Seems like it's not over yet."

"Not by a long shot," said Maddox.

"You timed your return right. We're just about to arrest your highway department man for murder."

A trooper ducked in, hooking his thumb back toward the hall. "DiBenedicto's on the line."

"Here we go," announced Hess, rolling his shoulders as he went into the hallway.

Joe Bryson, Hess's training partner who had come from the Mitchum barracks to watch him mop up this case, closed the door inside the old chief 's office. Hess punched the button on the telephone. "Jimmy D., you're on speaker. How we look?"

"Leo," came Jimmy DiBenedicto's voice, "we have exact matches in eight combinations—"

"Gimme the odds first, Jimbo. The stats that I love. This guy is one in how many hundreds of millions?"

"I haven't had a chance to do the math yet, Leo. But two of the matches are extremely rare, so it's a lock. Listen—who else you got there?"

"Couple of good people, Jimmy." Hess shifted balance, looking at Bryson, the county attorney in short sleeves, Fogarty, and the other guy from CSS. He reasserted himself. "Everybody who should be here is here, Jimmy. It's fine. Go ahead."

"Leo," came the filtered voice. "Maybe you want to pick up."

Hess cocked his head. Eyeing the phone from a different angle. "No, Jimmy, I'm sure I don't want to pick up. You said you had an exact match on the autorads."

"I carried this thing across the hall myself, Leo. It's one to one. Only not with the swab you submitted. It's a rad out of the convicted felon database."

"The CODIS?"

Hess did pick up the handset then. Like the world's lightest dumbbell.

Hess did not hang up after the conversation. He snapped the handset in half instead. He stood there a moment with the cracked plastic and exposed wire in his hands, then dispatched Bryson to bring him Pail and Maddox.

They appeared before his desk. Maddox saw the busted phone on the blotter and knew immediately that something was up.

Hess made them wait, burning off a little more anger at their expense, making them suffer for his aggravation. This ass-crack town, this fucking bitch of a case. And these two banged-up playground cops. What did I do to deserve this?

"This missing sex offender," said Hess.

Now Maddox looked confused. Pail said, "Scarecrow?"

Hess scowled at this room he was going to be stuck in a little while longer. "I need to know everything about him there is to know."

PART III

SCARECROW

32

HESS

BRYSON WAS ONLY a few weeks out of uniform, but Hess had detected a change in him since the DNA rads came back. Used to be Bryson would ape Hess. Hess would turn around with his arms crossed and find Bryson standing there, arms crossed. Hess would walk in chewing one of the spearmint toothpicks he kept in the ashtray of his car, and a day or two later Bryson would be switching a pick from one corner of his mouth to the other like it was something he'd been doing all his life. Bryson had started working out more, Hess noticed, and shaping his hair flatter on top, and talking about church. Like Hess's boys, Bryson was learning by imitation, paying out respect in the form of flattery.