The Killing Moon: A Novel

compactor, mouse droppings peppering the countertop.

Continuing clockwise, he moved through another doorway into a small dining room with a fireplace of blackened brick. Cobwebs formed filament shelves in the corners, fist and heel holes cratering the walls.

He arrived at the bottom of a staircase, almost back where he had begun. The balusters along the bottom were all karate-kicked in half, the wooden handrail ripped out of the wall. He started loudly up the steps, proclaiming his presence.

The second floor was four more empty rooms. Some small animal had hoarded niblets of what looked like Indian corn; the nylon webbing of an old umbrella left behind in one of the open closets had been shredded and chewed. The plaster walls were cracked under the weight of the roof.

Back downstairs, Maddox retraced his steps to the short passageway between the kitchen and the first room. A door stood ajar opposite the bath, its unpainted edge showing the grain of the original wood inside. The hinges gave with a rusty whine, Maddox smelling basement. It was dark down there, a low-ceilinged stairway hooking ninety degrees at the halfway point. The cellar from every horror movie ever made.

He listened. He waited.

'Police!' he barked. Worth a try. 'Who's down there?'

He heard nothing except the open-channel static of anxiety in his head. He wished he had brought his flashlight. He tried the light switch inside the door, as though it might magically work for him. It did not. But like a gamer needing to sweep every corner of every virtual room before moving on to the next level, he pushed ahead down the dark plank steps.

'I'm coming down,' he announced.

From the bottom step, he scoped out the area on either side, spotting a pair of glinting eyes that turned out to be two crushed beer cans. The window wells admitted just enough sunlight to see by. He moved along the edge of the underside of the stairs, something big and bulky appearing behind the base of the chimney like an animal rising up: a rusty oil tank on four legs.

His boot toe nudged another can, which he kicked away as if it were a rat. The acoustics were unsettling, and there was a trapped smell here, less an odor than a vapor. Maddox's hand found the wood grip of his revolver. He hesitated leaving the perceived safety of the underside of the stairs, but did so, turning, the side wall of the basement revealed.

Its paneling was marked with spray paint. The boldest of the graffiti read: Black Falls is Helllll!

One of the images from Sinclair's camera's memory stick. Suddenly, Maddox felt him here. Felt Sinclair's presence. In this basement where he had practiced his magic routines obsessively. Where Val had once found him playing with a hangman's noose. Sinclair had returned here recently, at least once, standing right where Maddox stood now, camera in hand. Going over old ground like a dog on a short tether, looking for reasons or explanations. Looking for answers. Just as Maddox was doing now. What was it Val had said?

I feel like everything with Dill, everything, is this attempt to get back his childhood.

Would he kill to get it back?

Maddox heard a creak. A gritty scrape. A thumping, muffled; something moving overhead.

Footsteps on the floor above him. Someone else was inside the house.

Maddox's revolver cleared his holster. He moved silently to the bottom of the stairs. He started up slowly, the handgun thrust before him like a flashlight, turning at the bend, making for the brighter dimness of the open door at the top.

He caught a hint of shadow. Someone in the kitchen. He crept ahead, wincing at the little wooden groans beneath his boots.

The house was silent up top as he crossed the threshold into the hall. The piece of the kitchen he could see was clear. With his revolver closer to his chest now, he rounded the corner, sensing movement in the dining room and whipping toward it hard.

He saw the wide-brimmed campaign cover first, then the silver whistle and badge. He pulled off his aim, and the trooper in front of him howled and did the same with his sidearm, then spun off and ripped a string of curses.

'Okay, okay,' Maddox said, settling himself down, his heart kicking at his chest.

'What the fuck are you doing here!' howled the red-faced trooper, angry and scared at how close he'd come.

'Easy.' Maddox was conciliatory. 'Easy. Hold up.'

The trooper stabbed his still-drawn Sig Sauer P226 toward the floor. 'Fuck you, 'hold up,' you fucking dickhead! Almost got your ass killed! The fuck are you doing in here?'

'The fuck am I doing?'

'I'm responding to a call, motherfucker. Like a real fucking law officer. Joke-ass local yokel. Get out of my face.'

The trooper thrust his sidearm back into his duty belt holster and strode out of the room.

As Maddox climbed back out through the missing window, the high branches of the backyard trees began to shudder. Leaves twisted and blew down as a concussive whupping rose up overhead. The roaring flutter of a Massachusetts State Police Air Wing helicopter.

The trooper had his hat off now, a uniform violation for a road trooper in the MSP. He was snarling into his shoulder radio. 'Nothing showing?some local dink playing cop, snooping around?false alarm.'

A neighbor must have seen a man?Maddox?walking toward the abandoned Sinclair house, the entire town being in this hysterical state of alert.

'What are you looking at?' demanded the bareheaded trooper, turning on Maddox again, unable to let this go. 'The fuck are you looking at?'

Maddox thought of the K-9 dogs all fired up after a search, seeking to sink their teeth into something, anything. He could ding this road guy, drop a letter in his performance file for abusive language as well as the removed hat, dock him some vacation time. But instead he just stood there and absorbed the trooper's contempt for a small-town cop.

THE HELICOPTER moved on and Maddox returned to his driveway, finding a tan Corolla parked behind his patrol car.

Val stepped out of the driver's side. She looked relieved, almost elated, as he approached. 'Where were you?' she said. 'I tried the doorbell, I knocked.'

He was startled. 'Is everything okay?'

'Okay?' She held her arms away from her sides as though modeling the new Val. 'Everything's great. Can't you tell?'

She wore a loose, grape red top over denim jeans. Her black hair was washed and brushed out, styled similarly to the way she used to wear it in high school, a little bit of makeup setting off her winged eyes.

'The smell,' she said. She presented her hands and arms for examination. 'The septic stink. It's already going away.'

'Oh,' Maddox said. 'That's?good.'

'So you're leaving now?'

'This moment? No. Don't look so happy about it.'

'But I am. I'm happy to give you the chance to redeem yourself.'

'Okay.' This sudden ebullience looked strange on her. Strident, like a flower in overbloom, its pedals curling back too far. 'Redeem myself how?'

'I've been packing some things already. Quietly getting ready.'

'Packing for what?'

'To tag along with you. If you'll have me, that is.'

She said the last part like she was ribbing him. Maddox fumbled for the right facial expression, never mind words. She saw this and jumped in.

'Just as friends, of course. I mean, at first. We wouldn't have to? I'm not looking for anything right away. Just a friend, a helping hand. From there? You never know, right?'

'Val?'

'Everything's going to change. Everything. You wait and see. No more drinking during the day. No more pining away out on the back porch. No more dwelling. I'll join a gym. I'm going to be so healthy. You can help me.'

Maddox could only look mystified. After a few moments her smile started to wilt.

'You must know,' she said, 'this is no snap decision on my part. I've thought it all through. Believe me.'

He nodded, trying to find a way into the conversation.

She said, 'Think about it. Think for a moment. It would be like?like taking a potion. Like all these lost years since high school, they never happened. Like throwing luggage off a plane, watching it shrink and disappear. We'll be free.'

'That would be wonderful, Val. For anybody. In theory.'

'Okay.' Her smile tightened like a press squeezing the