The Killing Moon: A Novel

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 the 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.