Bad Moon (Kat Campbell Mysteries)

by Ritter, Todd

  She was also running out of neighbors. Besides the Clarks and the Santangelos, there was only one other house on the street, and it was the last place she expected to find Charlie. Still, she at least had to ask, even though she dreaded doing it.

  Her destination was the house next door to her own. The oldest on the street, it was an exhaustingly ornate Victorian that looked ancient compared with her own home. Charlie liked to pretend it was haunted. He claimed children were buried in the backyard and that their ghosts roamed the house at night. Maggie had no clue what gave him such ideas, but she understood how the house’s appearance played a part in fueling his imagination. Black shutters flanked the tall windows. A widow’s walk on the roof seemed to lean in whatever direction the wind was blowing. The wraparound porch had an unused swing and brittle steps that threatened to break when Maggie climbed them.

  Although the house was dark, she knew its owner was home. He was always home.

  “Mr. Stewart?” Maggie shifted the baby’s weight to her left shoulder and knocked on the door with her right hand.

  No one answered, which didn’t surprise her in the least. Glenn Stewart never answered his door. Nor, as far as Maggie could tell, did he go outside.

  “Mr. Stewart? Are you there?”

  Maggie knocked again, remembering the last time she had seen him, during that awkward homecoming party. The whole debacle had been her idea. Glenn had no family that she knew of, and she felt sorry he was returning from Vietnam to an empty house inherited from his grandparents. So she baked a cake, rounded up the neighbors, and marched next door, intent on creating a happy homecoming through sheer force of will.

  Glenn had wanted nothing to do with it. He wasn’t rude when he opened the door and saw seven people (seven and a half, if you counted Maggie’s very pregnant stomach) applauding on his porch. He looked more scared than anything else, twitching like a rabbit facing a pack of wolves. But he refused to let them inside and declined the cake, which Maggie thrust at him desperately. Not knowing what else to do, she had left the cake on the porch, hoping Glenn would retrieve it later. Then they left, taking the hint. Glenn Stewart wanted to be left alone.

  But now Maggie couldn’t leave him alone. Not until she knew if he had seen Charlie. So her knocking turned to pounding.

  “Mr. Stewart? It’s Maggie Olmstead from next door.”

  Dropping her head in frustration, Maggie noticed something sitting on the porch floor, about a yard away from her feet. It was the cake—ravaged by birds, bugs, and four long seasons—sitting exactly where she had left it a year earlier.

  *

  Retreating from Glenn Stewart’s house, Maggie saw two police cars at the end of the cul-de-sac, where the asphalt ended and the footpath into the woods began. Twin beams of light swooped through the trees. Flashlights, scanning the darkness for her son.

  One of the lights suddenly stopped. A voice rose from the woods.

  “I think I see something!”

  The second light bobbed swiftly toward the still one. Maggie moved, too, running toward the forest. She no longer felt the pebbles under her feet or the rain stinging her face. The only things she felt were the baby wriggling in her arms and the knot of worry expanding to all points of her body.

  Her other senses, however, were heightened to an alarming degree. When she reached the path and pushed into the woods, her eyesight never dimmed. The smell of wet earth, moss, and maple sap clogged her nostrils. Her ears practically buzzed at the sound of boots tromping through the underbrush and voices murmuring to each other.

  Then there was the creek. She saw the water’s glint, smelled its banks, heard the discordant rush as it approached Sunset Falls and plummeted over.

  Two men were standing at the footbridge when Maggie reached it. One of them was Deputy Owen Peale, his face obscured by a hooded poncho. The other was the police chief, Jim Campbell. He eschewed the poncho in favor of a wide-brimmed hat. Maggie’s presence startled both of them.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Maggie,” Jim said.

  “Did you find Charlie?”

  He tried to turn her around, away from the water. “What are you doing out here with the baby? You’re sopping wet.”

  Maggie refused to budge. She craned her neck until she could see over the chief’s shoulder. Behind him, Deputy Peale had his flashlight pointed toward the stream.

  “Is Charlie there?” she asked. “Is he okay?”

  “Let’s get you home,” Chief Campbell said, his voice telling Maggie everything she needed to know. It was falsely optimistic, bordering on condescension. Something was wrong.

  The baby began to stir in Maggie’s arms, more forcefully than before. A cry erupted from the infant, as loud and fraught with terror as the one that had awakened Maggie in the first place.

  “How about you give me the baby,” Jim said. “I’m drier.”

  When he held out his arms, Maggie made her move. She swerved past him and sprinted up the path. Deputy Peale lunged for her at the bridge, but she scooted right, just out of his reach. Then she was on the bridge, bounding across it until she was directly over the water. In the distance, about twenty yards away, the creek ended and the falls began.

  Looking down at the water, she saw a branch emerge from under the bridge, riding the rain-swollen creek. It floated along the surface before hitting a rock and briefly stopping there. But the persistent current didn’t allow it to stay in place for long. Water swirled around the branch like tentacles until it was dislodged. The branch was whisked onward to the edge of the falls, where it slid from view.

  Over, down, gone.

  Maggie heard Jim Campbell yelling her name. She saw Owen Peale now on the bridge, approaching slowly and saying “It’s okay, Mrs. Olmstead. It’ll be okay.”

  Her eyes turned back to the falls, where the branch had just tumbled into darkness. She traced its path, gaze swimming against the current. Soon she was looking off the other side of the bridge, her back to the falls. The creek there looked just as wild. Leaves, sticks, and globs of trash floated toward her and slipped beneath the bridge. There were rocks there, too, large boulders that poked out of the water like icebergs.

  Owen Peale had reached her by that point. He clutched her shoulders and shook his head. “Don’t look. Please don’t look.”

  That was when Maggie saw what she wasn’t supposed to see. It was an object caught on the rock closest to the bridge, pinned there by the current. It was blue. A blue so dark she could barely make it out. There were spots of white, too, ragged blotches that vaguely resembled stars.

  Maggie screamed.

  It was Charlie’s bike. Right there in the water. The current caught the spokes of the front tire and rocked it back and forth.

  Jim Campbell joined them on the bridge. One of the men, Maggie didn’t know which, took the baby. The other tried to pull her away from the bridge railing. Maggie allowed herself to be moved. She didn’t have the strength to fight it. She simply went limp as she was dragged off the bridge. Along the way, she took one last glance toward the creek, even though she knew she shouldn’t. She had to see it again. Just to make sure it was real.

  She saw the water dislodge the bike, just as it had moved the branch earlier. Caught on the current, the bike was submerged for a moment. It poked out of the water again on the other side of the bridge, riding inexorably toward the falls. When it reached the edge, the bike overturned, rear tire spinning. Then it slipped away, riding the falls.

  Over.

  Down.

  Gone.

  WEDNESDAY

  ONE

  Five minutes.

  That’s how much time Kat Campbell had until she needed to be out the door. Five lousy minutes to brew coffee, feed the dog, pack her son’s lunch, and toast two bagels for them to eat in the car. On a good morning, all of that could be accomplished in ten minutes. But this wasn’t a good morning. Not by a long shot.

  The coffee was brewing so slowly it made Kat wish someone would just hu
rry up and invent a caffeine IV drip. One bagel was trapped in the toaster, quickly turning from golden brown to charcoal black. The other sat on the kitchen counter, waiting to meet the same fate. James’s lunch so far consisted of two slices of bread and a cup of chocolate pudding. His beagle, Scooby, had already given up on the prospect of breakfast and was now chewing an empty toilet paper roll dug out of the bathroom trash.

  “James? Are you almost ready?”

  Kat didn’t move from the kitchen counter. She was well aware how far lung power traveled in her house, and her voice would have no trouble rushing up the stairs and into her son’s bedroom.

  “In a minute,” James called back. It was punctuated by the sound of a dresser drawer slamming shut. Never a good sign.

  “It’s the first day of school. We don’t have a minute.”

  In reality, they had three, but Kat was too busy making his lunch to correct herself. She slapped some cold cuts on the bread, coated it with mustard, and dropped it into a Ziploc bag. This was tossed into James’s lunchbox with the pudding, a granola bar, and milk money. Then it was on to the bagels. The one stuck in the toaster was freed with some shaking, tapping, and the strategic use of a butter knife. The untoasted one remained that way.

  Next came Scooby, who had dropped the toilet paper roll into his dinner bowl, presumably to make Kat feel just a bit more neglectful. She replaced it with kibble, refilled his water dish, and let him go to town.

  By that time, the coffeemaker was squeezing out a few last drops. Kat grabbed the pot and poured half of it into a thermos. She was done, with a minute to spare.

  Pausing to catch her breath, she turned to the small television sitting on the kitchen counter. James sometimes watched cartoons on it while eating breakfast on Saturday mornings. That day, it was turned to CNN, where a blandly handsome anchor was sharing breaking news.

  “The space race has officially restarted,” he said. “Early today, the China National Space Administration successfully launched its first manned voyage to the moon.”

  The screen switched from the anchor to a clip of China’s president hailing the launch. That was followed by footage of the launch itself—a distant shot of an ivory tower streaking across the sky. After that was a view of Tiananmen Square, where thousands of spectators cheered.

  “As the entire nation watched, three Chinese astronauts took off for the moon. They are expected to reach it Friday afternoon. A successful mission would make China only the second country, after the United States, to send a man to the moon. It would also be the first time since 1972 that man has set foot on the moon’s surface.”

  Kat checked her watch. Time was up. Switching off the TV, she called upstairs once more. “James, we’ve got to go. Even if you’re still naked, we’re leaving this house.”

  Two seconds later, her son stomped into the kitchen wearing jeans, a Phillies T-shirt, and sneakers. The clothes and shoes were new. And expensive. At first, Kat had balked at spending so much on back-to-school clothes, but James swore up and down that he needed them to fit in. Kat realized, sadly, it was most likely true. James was entering fifth grade, a tough year for any kid, let alone one with Down syndrome. But he was a smart boy, able to keep up with the others in his class, and so far he had made it through elementary school with a minimum of teasing. In order to keep it that way, Kat was willing to shell out for new clothes. And sneakers. And a backpack, even though the one James had used last year was in perfectly good condition.

  The only holdover was his lunch box, which featured characters from the movie Cars. Kat had assumed James would want a newer, cooler one, just like everything else. But when he didn’t mention it, she didn’t bring it up. She was all too happy to save a few bucks and pack his lunch inside good old Lightning McQueen.

  Yet when Kat handed him the lunch box, James looked at her like she had just grown a second head.

  “What’s this?”

  “Your lunch. Or at least something that resembles lunch.”

  James wasn’t amused. “Fifth graders don’t use lunch boxes.”

  “I didn’t get that memo. And we don’t have time to deal with it now.”

  “But I’ll look stupid,” James protested as he slung his backpack over his shoulder.

  “You didn’t look stupid last year.”

  “But that was fourth grade. It was cool in fourth grade.”

  “And you’ll be cool tomorrow.” Kat handed him his bagel and nudged him toward the back door. “But today it’s either the lunch box or no lunch at all.”

  James sighed dramatically. It had become his usual way of demonstrating that he was right and she was wrong. Whenever she heard it, Kat felt a twinge of nostalgia for the boy who used to think everything she did was wonderful.

  Once James was out the door, she reached for a small rack on the wall behind it. One hook contained the keys to her patrol car. The other held her holster. Kat removed both, putting the keys in her pocket and the holster around her waist. Below the rack was a small safe that contained her Glock. She opened it, removed the gun, and checked the safety before quickly sliding it into her holster. Then she grabbed her own bagel and thermos and left the house.

  Although James didn’t bring up the lunch box again during the drive to school, he was certainly thinking about it. He spent the entire trip staring at it with resignation and, Kat sensed, no small amount of trepidation. He was nervous, which was understandable. Kat was nervous, too. She remembered entering the fifth grade and discovering how different it was from the previous year. It was the same way with sixth grade. And then junior high, which was a whole other world of cliques, peer pressure, and petty cruelties.

  “You’ll be fine, Little Bear,” she said as they approached the school. “And we’ll brown-bag your lunch tomorrow.”

  James’s nervous gaze moved from the lunch box to Kat. “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  *

  After sending James off with a peck on the cheek that he quickly wiped away, Kat headed to work. Perry Hollow’s police station sat a few blocks southeast of the school, but instead of taking a shortcut to get there, she turned onto Main Street and drove its entire length. Taking her time, she scanned the quaint shops and restaurants that lined both sides of the thoroughfare.

  They were the heart of Perry Hollow now that the lumber mill that had given the town its name was gone. Part of her job as police chief was to make sure that heart was beating strongly. If Big Joe’s, the town’s de facto Starbucks, was closed, it meant something was wrong with its aged proprietor, Ellen Faye, and that Kat needed to check up on her. When passing Awesome Blossoms, the flower shop, she made a point to note the presence of its delivery van, which had been stolen in the past.

  It was still too early for most of the businesses to be open, but the lights were on at Big Joe’s, which meant Ellen was still chugging along. The same was true at the Perry Hollow Diner, where pickup trucks outnumbered cars in the parking lot by a three-to-one margin. And sitting in front of Awesome Blossoms was a white Ford delivery van.

  The sight made Kat sigh with relief, considering the hell the town went through when it was stolen. Almost a year had passed since the end of those dark days, and Perry Hollow seemed to have gotten over the worst of it.

  For the most part, Kat and James had, too.

  Once she finished the inspection of Main Street, Kat maneuvered the Crown Vic down a side street and into the police station’s parking lot. Two other cars were already there. One was a patrol car similar to her own. That was driven by her deputy, Carl Bauersox, who was finishing up his usual night shift. The other was a Volkswagen Beetle that belonged to Louella van Sickle, the station’s dispatcher, secretary, cleaning lady, and all-around indispensable presence.

  When Kat entered the station, Lou was already at her desk. She eyed the thermos and blackened bagel in Kat’s hands.

  “Stuck in the toaster again?”

  “Yup,” Kat said. “It was one of those mornings. I
predict the coffee sucks, too.”

  She took a sip, proving herself right. The coffee was far too strong, with a bitter aftertaste that stuck in the back of her throat.

  Lou shook her gray-haired head. “Bad coffee. Burned bagels. You need a man in that house.”

  “And you,” Kat said, “need to get your mind out of the fifties.”

  Lou, who had been married for forty-three years, took it as a compliment.

  “Call me old-fashioned, but I like not having to worry about making the coffee in the morning. Al does that. And he fixes the toilet. And mows the lawn. Plus, he’s still pretty good in the bed department.”

  Kat didn’t need to know that. Nor did she need a man, despite Lou’s insistence otherwise. She had enough on her plate already—job, son, dog. There wasn’t any room on her schedule for finding and keeping a mate.

  “All I’m saying is keep an open mind,” Lou told her. “One of these days, the perfect man could walk through that door and you’d dismiss him immediately.”

  At that moment, a man did walk through the door. But Carl Bauersox, who was nice enough, wasn’t Kat’s type. Plus, he was married, with two kids and another on the way.

  “Do you make coffee?” Lou asked him.

  Carl answered with a nod. “And I fix the toilet and mow the lawn.”

  “So you heard our conversation.”

  “Yes,” Carl said, his baby face growing red. “But I don’t want to talk about the bed stuff.”

  “That’s fine,” Lou said. “I’ll call your wife and ask her.”

  The deputy looked mortified, as if she’d actually do it. Lou didn’t help matters by reaching for the phone. Kat beat her to it, pressing palm to receiver and assuring Carl that no calls would be made to his wife about their sex life. Ever.

  “How was your shift?” she asked him. “Anything to report?”

  “Not really. Speeding ticket on Old Mill Road. The Wellington kid again.”