The Killing Moon: A Novel

before answering. The guy was careful, Hess noticed. He wasn't overeager to work with the big boys, and he wasn't intimidated either. 'No.'

'You seem sure.'

'I wasn't looking for it, but I'm pretty sure.'

'It's the only thing missing. Not worth much money.'

Maddox shrugged.

'How many more witches you got up here?'

Maddox smiled. 'That I know of?'

'Cult activity is what I'm getting at.'

'No. Nothing I'm aware of.'

Hess nodded. 'Other thing I'm hearing is that Frond had issues with some of the cops. I don't have the full story, but I know he broke up a traffic stop or some such where a suspect was being beaten?that suspect being your missing sex offender.'

'Yeah. That was before my time.'

Hess waited, watching him. Realized he was treating this guy like a suspect. Outside the front windows he saw two sleds pull into the driveway?blue-on-blue state police cruisers?escorting an old orange pickup truck carrying something under a tarp in the bed.

'This is us,' said Hess, pushing out the screen door ahead of Maddox. A police station with a front porch: this was a first. Three stone steps led to the driveway.

The town DPW guy got out of his pickup, a broad-backed cluck with a close-shaved head who, with his build and facial expression, wouldn't have looked out of place in a prison yard. He wiped his dirty hands on the hips of his dirty shorts. 'Don,' the guy said, to Maddox.

'Here's what I need,' Hess told Maddox. 'We found an old safe in the house, under an upstairs bed. Your public works man here was good enough to haul it out for us?your name again?'

The guy mumbled it. He was as slow-moving as the rest, maybe even slower. Cement in the veins. The cruiser lights bothered him, making him squint.

'I could wait for morning and ship this box back to civilization, but that would cost me at least another half day and I don't want that. I need a machinist in town?or a safecracker, if you got one?but more likely somebody who can drill through this thing and pop it open. Mr. Ripsbaugh here suggested a name, and, given the late hour, I wanted you to come along as a familiar face, to make introductions.'

Maddox looked at Ripsbaugh.

'Kitner,' Ripsbaugh said.

Maddox mulled over the name, looking surprised. He turned to Hess. 'Okay,' he said. 'But there's something you need to know about Kitner first.'

27

KITNER

THE KNOCKING WAS going to wake up Ma. In sleep shorts, Steve Kitner pulled the door open, first a little, then wider, seeing headlights in the dirt lot.

One of the local cops was standing on his top step. Behind him were real state police cruisers.

'Aw, shit,' said Kitner, a wave of depression overcoming him like rigor mortis. 'Look, I'm clean, man. Whatever. I'm innocent. This is bullshit.'

The cop said, 'It's nothing like that, Kitner.'

He knew this day was coming?knew it. Knock on his door and take him away. That shoved-up-against-the-wall feeling again. 'I'm registered like I'm supposed to be. I'm a citizen now.'

The cop showed him an open palm. 'Listen to me.'

Kitner didn't hear single words, only the general idea: the staties wanted a favor from him.

It seemed almost like a trap, though they had nothing to trap him for. He hadn't done anything wrong. They were only making him feel like he had.

A favor seemed like a good idea. 'Shit, yeah, I'll help you out, why not.'

He pushed through the aluminum door, reminded he was barefoot by the rocky driveway. He wore only saggy boxers and a string tank, but who cared.

Unless there were female troopers here.

He hoped Ma wouldn't wake up, see the cars, have a conniption. Wouldn't be bad later to tell her how he helped out cops. How he was being so good.

He walked inside the garage-turned-shop at the outside of the road curve, under the unlit sign reading KITNER TOOL & DIE. He hit the red stopper and the power started up, the shop blinking to life. He found a pair of the old man's safety boots and lifted his leather apron off its peg.

Two tall troopers lugged in an old safe dusty with fingerprint powder. Kitner pointed to the larger drill press and they thunked it down there and stretched their backs.

A plainclothesman with cobra arms came in, said nothing. The hard-ass act. Then the local cop and that guy Ripsbaugh, the town roadworker.

No women.

The safe, she was a beauty. Short and stout, maybe two and a half cubic feet of volume, a black dial with ivory numbers over a small silver handle.

'Pretty box,' said Kitner, stroking his tonguelike goatee. 'Turn her upside down. Bottom's usually the softest.' Just like a woman, he almost added, but thought better, thanks to his conditioning. He smiled as the troopers did his bidding.

Nineteen eighty- eight was the last time he had shared a room with this much law. From the way the plainclothes guy eyeballed him, Kitner figured they all knew about his Merrimack County prior. How he had gotten loaded on blackberry brandy and amphetamines one night during a freak snowstorm and how, driving around looking to score more dope, he had happened upon a female motorist stuck in a snow-bank and how, after offering to help dig her out, he had strangled her unconscious instead and raped her in the backseat. They found him sleeping there later, on the nod, so the guilty plea was his best bet. He pled and did his time. Prison wasn't bad because he had been in the army, if briefly. Afterward, he tried to make it elsewhere, but the Level 3 label meant 'most likely to reoffend,' so he couldn't hold a job or an apartment anywhere without people smashing in his windows and calling him up in the middle of the night and threatening to slice off and feed him his own dick. So when his dad died he resettled up here and took over the old man's shop. Not like he had a long list of options.

It was better here, like a self-imposed exile. Not being able to afford a car removed a lot of temptation. Sometimes, maybe once a month, he felt the change in his metabolism, that old sweet tooth starting to tingle. Sometimes, when he looked around at the old man's shop with its dingy floors and power machinery, he saw a dungeon in waiting. Sometimes he thought about what it would be like to work on people here instead of metal. Building a person, a woman, to his own specifications, so he wouldn't have to worry about breaking laws ever again. If he had all the money in the world he would build himself a harem of women and be real good to them.

He pulled on rubber-strapped goggles and went to work. He screwed open the chuck and inserted an old drill bit shank, one he could afford to dull or even snap, closing the three jaws tight around it. He pedaled the power and turned the drill rpm to 300 and wheeled the lever down for its first bite. The box screamed, again and again, and he kept at it, spraying sparks and hot filings. Old steel and many layers thick. It was nice to let himself go. The casing resisted so he reset the bit for another assault, and with a few whining thrusts finally pushed through. He drove again and again at the casing, wailing on it, widening his bore to spread the gap. So absorbed was he that he didn't even notice when Ripsbaugh exited the shop. Finally, by adjusting and readjusting his aim, he joined all the various holes, having chewed open a gash large enough to admit a man's hand.

He offered to keep going but the plainclothesman stopped him, shining a light down inside and then handing Kitner a pair of latex gloves. Kitner tested the hot wound, then reached inside, getting his fist in almost to the elbow. He felt around the cavity and pulled out a manila envelope.

The plainclothesman took it from him. Kitner saw the local cop looking on from the open front door.

'Tax returns,' said the plainclothesman, inspecting the contents. 'Canceled checks.' He scanned a signed document with disgust. 'Fucking health care proxy. Nothing.'

'There's a drawer in the top,' Kitner told him, so helpful. 'On the bottom now. Feels thin, if you want me to get in there.'

He did. Kitner twisted a longer bit into the chuck, working deeper into the existing hole. The safe gave up the drawer with almost no resistance. The plainclothesman handed Kitner his flashlight and a second pair of latex gloves.

The guy was getting impatient. 'Is it a dagger?' he asked.

Kitner noticed that the local cop had moved inside the doors now. Kitner got his arm all the way in, pulling out a short stack of small, cream-colored envelopes tied together with a cherry red ribbon. Plainclothes held out his own gloved hands and Kitner served him the packet like a fancy slice of cake. Plainclothes lifted the letters to his nose?the perfume had a vanilla smell?then pulled at the tie, the bow knot yielding and falling limp, the envelopes undressed.

Kitner watched him open the top one, pulling out thread-flecked stationery folded into thirds. The handwriting was small and neat in red ink. Two sheets, though the handwriting on the second one ended halfway down. Below it were two pencil drawings that made Kitner go up on his toes, trying to see better over Plainclothes's