The Killing Moon: A Novel

Hess said, "So he was dressing up in black, riding his bike around after dark, and sneaking into backyards to snap pictures of little boys sleeping in first-floor bedrooms. Until twelve forty-three A.M. on June twenty-fifth, the time and date stamp of the last picture."

Bryson said, "One week before the night the insurance salesman, Heavey, said he heard a shot in the forest, near where this camera was recovered."

Hess said, "And then there's this."

There followed five flash-lit images of a basement in an apparently abandoned house, the paneled walls kicked in and defaced: spray-painted devil's horns, various "666" designs, and, in dripping red like a comic-book howl, the words, Black Falls is Helllll!

Hess said, "Recognize any of this?"

Bucky and Maddox took turns shaking their heads.

"Cult stuff," suggested Bryson.

Hess watched Maddox's face sour in disagreement.

Then came more early images, many of them unclear, either too dark or with the sleeping child obscured. Sinclair learning by trial and error.

When the next one he wanted came up, Hess said, "Stop."

A two-story house at dusk, the image taken among trees across an otherwise empty backyard. The house had a rear deck, and the bit of the front yard visible around the left side looked like wetlands.

Bucky leaned in. He got right up over Bryson's head, examining the screen. He straightened and looked back at Maddox.

"That's his place," said Bucky, pointing. "That's Maddox's damn house."

Maddox was still absorbing the image. He did not deny Bucky's claim.

Hess said, "Maddox?"

Maddox said, "Looks like it."

Bucky said, "Scarecrow was fuckin' taking pictures of you?"

Hess asked, "Why would he take a picture of your house?"

Maddox shook his head, as much out of disbelief as I-don't-know.

Bucky Pail pulled back, formed a wide grin. "'Cause he's fuckin' gay. They're gay together. You and Scarecrow got something going, Maddox?"

"Yeah," said Maddox, turning to Bucky. "He likes me to handcuff him and slap him around. Says you taught him."

Hess said, "All right, all right."

Bucky's eyes were dead, staring at Maddox. But Maddox's attention had already returned to the screen. Figuring out this house mystery was more important to him than jousting with Bucky Pail.

Hess said, "Maddox, what do you have to say about this?"

"I have nothing to say. I'm looking at this just like you. I don't know what the hell it is."

"Sinclair's a fan of your work? Your own backyard paparazzo?"

"I have to answer for him?" Maddox said. "What do you want me to say?"

"It disturbs you."

"Sure it does. But not as much as those pictures of the sleeping boys."

Hess nodded, having gotten what he wanted out of Maddox. "They looked quite dead, didn't they."

Maddox looked up fast like he hadn't thought of that.

41

VAL

VAL SAT IN HER WHITE yard chair at the long edge of the white resin table on the back porch. The turf beneath her slippers was a fuzzy green indoor-outdoor carpet, and two citronella candles were set in the middle of the table, near the empty umbrella hole, both jars blackened, the wicks burned down to the bottom. The back porch was screened in, but insects were still a problem, because of the smell. The septic company garage out beyond the low chain-link fence at the edge of their property drew gnats and mosquitoes and chits and no-see-ums out of the surrounding woods. Blue-bulb zappers hung from three corners of the roof, snapping and sizzling all day and night.

She had taken a glass and a half of rosé at about ten and only another small glass with lunch, so she was certain he couldn't tell. Donny Maddox sat at the shorter end of the table, his back to the yard. Keeping his distance because of the kissing in his car. She watched the smoke feather up off her cigarette and then ribbon in some mysterious, unfelt crosscurrent. This was where she did her thinking. Later she would revisit the conversation as though he were still sitting here, veering off into unexplored dialogues, playing with alternate endings.

She already remembered the way he had looked at the plastic tray of annuals on the newspaper in the sunniest corner, when he first joined her out here. The flower petals parched and dead. And the memory of his look—so recent it was more of an echo than a memory—already colored her responses. She didn't want him turning that same look of pity on her. The unplanted violets represented the flare of a good morning some weeks before, a few hours of get-my-life-in-order-starting-with-this-house energy, which, as always, soon burned itself out.

She turned the cigarette over in her hand to disrupt the smoke stream. "This is my weight loss program," she told him. "My exercise regimen and my portion control." She inhaled, savoring the hit. "Best part is, it works. Kane hates it. Hates the smell, which is ridiculous, coming from him. But I need it. Anything to cover up this." She pointed across the side lawn to the septic garage.