Low Red Moon

by Kiernan, Caitlin R.

  “Are you also aware I’m a drunk?” Deacon asks.

  “Yes,” Agent Gorman replies, exchanging impatient glances with the Birmingham agent. “We are. You’d been sober for what, the last year or so?”

  “Give or take a month or two,” Deacon replies. “Fortunately, I’m all better now.”

  “He gets migraines,” Detective Downs says. “That’s why he drinks.”

  “Jesus, man, are you like my fucking den mother now or what?” and Deacon glares past the two agents at Downs’ back.

  “I just don’t see any point in you making this shit any harder on yourself than it has to be,” Downs says. “That’s all.”

  “Then maybe you can get me something to drink, ’cause a bottle of Jack or Dickle would sure make this a whole lot easier.”

  Agent Broom coughs, and Gorman puts his elbows on the table and leans towards Deacon, squinting through the cigarette smoke with his beady rat eyes.

  “What I’m still trying to figure out,” he says, “is why you lied to Detective Downs here in the first place, why you told him you thought the killer was a man.”

  “Sometimes I’m wrong. I keep telling people that, but nobody ever listens.”

  “It’s a pretty big mistake, don’t you think? First, you tell him he’s looking for a white man in his forties with a swastika tattoo. Then you decide, no, it’s really a woman with yellow eyes named—” He stops and looks expectantly at Agent Broom.

  “Narcissus Snow,” Broom says.

  “Narcissa,” Deacon says.

  “Pretty damn big mistake, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Think you could do better?” Deacon asks, then adds, “But I was right about the tattoos. She has two, one on each side of her ass. They aren’t swastikas, but I still think I should at least get a half-credit for that.”

  “So, why didn’t you tell us about the fight at the bar?” Gorman asks.

  “What fight?” Deacon replies and looks at the ashtray so he won’t have to look at Gorman.

  “We talked to a friend of yours who tends bar there,” Broom says. “She says there was some kind of trouble Sunday evening, you and some guy with a ponytail and a biker jacket. She said there was a girl with him.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “Deacon, you really don’t want to start screwing around with the FBI,” Downs says, and Deacon shrugs his shoulders.

  “Gentlemen, I’ve been in a whole hell of a lot of fights,” he says. “I can’t be expected to remember them all.”

  Gorman nods his head and leans a little closer. “The description the bartender gave us of the girl was a dead ringer for the chick we found out behind your apartment building.”

  “Then why the hell aren’t you talking to her?”

  “What was the fight about?” Gorman asks. “We know that’s how you hurt your hand,” and he points to Deacon’s bandaged left hand.

  “I broke a glass. That’s how I hurt my hand.”

  “Well, at least that’s half true,” Gorman says. “Why are you lying to us, Mr. Silvey? Who are you trying to protect? I’ll tell you, if someone had just kidnapped my pregnant wife, I think I’d try to be a little bit more helpful.”

  Deacon takes a last drag off the Camel and adds it to all the other butts piled in the ashtray, but doesn’t look up at Gorman. Too obvious that this man’s baiting him, digging for a rise, and Deacon doesn’t feel like giving him the satisfaction.

  “Deacon, maybe it’s time you started thinking about talking to a lawyer,” Downs says.

  “Do I look like I know any lawyers?”

  “Perhaps it’s time I introduced you to a couple.”

  “Listen, Mr. Silvey,” Agent Gorman says and begins tapping a middle finger loudly against the wooden tabletop. “Every hour, every minute, that ticks by makes it that less likely we’ll find your wife alive, or that we’ll even find her dead.”

  “I already told you—” Deacon begins, but Broom interrupts him.

  “He’s trying to stress that time is of the essence.”

  “Fuck that,” Gorman says. “I’m trying to make this sad sack of shit here understand that if he doesn’t shape up and stop bullshitting us, we’re going to find his wife rotting in a ditch somewhere.”

  “No,” Deacon replies calmly, watching Gorman’s tapping finger now instead of the ashtray. The man’s nails are thick and yellow. “I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen. I don’t think you’re going to find her at all. I don’t think you’ll ever find a single trace of her.”

  “Who’s the girl we got in the hospital?” Gorman asks, and Deacon shakes his head.

  “Are you saying you didn’t talk to her at the bar Sunday night?”

  “No, I’m just saying I don’t know who she is, that’s all. She told me her name was Jane. I think she might have said she was from Providence.”

  “Providence, Rhode Island?” asks Agent Broom.

  “Yeah, Providence fucking Rhode Island.”

  “And who’s your sparring buddy in the leather jacket?” Gorman asks and stops tapping on the table.

  “I never caught his name,” Deacon says. “We had a little disagreement over a glass of whiskey, that’s all.”

  “So you kicked his ass?”

  “What?” Deacon asks. “You think I might have overreacted?” and then he pushes his chair back from the table. It makes an unpleasant scrunking sound, sliding across the floor. Gorman sits up straight again and fidgets with his tie.

  “You kicked his ass,” he says, “then called Detective Downs to warn him that your wife’s life was in danger, and then you got into a car with these two people. The same car, by the way—a black 1959 Cadillac with Massachusetts plates—that you showed up in at—”

  “Am I under arrest, Agent?”

  The two men exchange glances again. “No,” Broom says. “You’re not under arrest, Mr. Silvey. I do want to make it clear that it wouldn’t look very good if you left the city right now. But no, you’re not under arrest.”

  “So I’m free to go then?”

  “Deacon, I don’t understand why you won’t at least try,” Downs says and finally turns around. “Who the fuck are these people that you’re too afraid of them to even give us information that might save your wife and child?”

  “I’m not afraid of them. I just don’t know who they are, and my head hurts too much to make up anything interesting.”

  “If we want to talk again,” Agent Gorman says, looking over his shoulder at the clock, “we better not have any trouble locating you.”

  “Don’t worry,” Deacon says. “I’ll cancel the vacation to Cancún,” and he stands, picks up his pack of cigarettes and the book of matches from The Plaza. “But I’m leaving now, unless someone has a better idea.”

  “We didn’t call you in just to bust your balls,” Broom says. “You’ve got enough to worry about. I just wish we could make you believe that we are trying to help.”

  “Oh, I believe you are. I imagine that’s exactly what you think you’re doing. It’s just that I know better, and I’m tired of playing footsie. It’s easier if I go ahead and give up now.”

  “Sounds kind of like the coward’s way out to me,” says Gorman, and Deacon looks him in the eye and nods his head.

  “Maybe that’s exactly what it is,” he says. “But that’s really none of your goddamn business, now is it?”

  “It’s my business to find a woman who’s been kidnapped and who’s also unfortunate enough to be your wife.”

  Deacon takes a step towards the agent, one hand on the corner of the table like he means to shove it out of his way, and then Downs has him by the shoulders, strong hands holding him fast, and Gorman takes a quick step back.

  “Maybe,” Deacon says, his voice grown low and threatening, “you weren’t paying attention. Maybe you missed the part where I really don’t give a shit what happens to me anymore.”

  “Let’s go for a walk,” Downs says and is already leading Deacon towards the
door. Gorman watches him go, while Agent Broom busies himself with a ballpoint pen and a little black spiral-bound notebook.

  “You know better than that,” Downs says, shutting the door after they’ve stepped out into the hallway. “At least I thought you did. Hammond said you were a pretty levelheaded guy, all things considered.”

  “I’m not in the mood for good cop–bad cop right now. And I need some water. I’ve got to take some Excedrin.”

  “I think there’s a cooler at the end of the hall. But, Deke, you need to know these guys are looking for any excuse to arrest anyone right now, you or anybody else.”

  Deacon follows the detective down the wide hall, marble floors and walls, frosted glass doors with names and titles printed carefully in gold paint, and the white, white light pouring down from the ceiling is making his headache even worse. There isn’t a cooler at the end of the hallway, but there is a men’s restroom, and Deacon tells Downs that’ll do, just give him a minute, but the cop follows him inside.

  “Did you ever think maybe I needed to take a piss?” he asks and fishes a couple of lint-covered tablets from his pants pocket.

  “Sorry, but we need to talk someplace I know nobody’s going to be listening. Well, someplace I’m pretty sure nobody’s listening.”

  “All these G-men making you nervous?” Deacon asks and dry-swallows the two Excedrin, then bends over to drink from the tap.

  “I don’t mind telling you, right now, everything makes me nervous.”

  Deacon stares at himself in the mirror above the sink, wipes away the water dripping from his chin. The detective is checking the four stalls behind him to be sure they’re alone, and Deacon runs some more water, splashes a handful across his face. The circles under his eyes have gone as dark as bruises.

  “This isn’t only about you and Chance,” Downs says. “And I’m about to tell you some shit that I’m not supposed to, but I think you have a right to know, even if you’re determined to act like a horse’s ass.”

  “You ought to know I’m not so good with secrets,” Deacon says, smoothing his hair back and wishing he could have stayed longer with Sadie, wishing he’d said all the things he meant to say.

  “Then you’re just going to have to make an exception.”

  “I’m not so good at making exceptions, either.”

  “Christ in a rusty wheelbarrow, Deacon, will you just shut the hell up and listen to me for a minute or two?”

  “I know she’s gone,” Deacon replies, turning away from the mirror, away from the sickly, haggard face frowning back at him. “And I think you know that I’m probably right. So what do you have to say that I could possibly want to hear?”

  “Maybe nothing,” Downs replies, and leans against a closed stall door. “Not if you’re so certain she’s dead.”

  “She’s dead, or I can’t get to her before she dies, and either way it’s the same damned thing.”

  “The Feds have been after this psycho for months now. This isn’t the first time they’ve gotten close to her. A few weeks ago, back in September, she killed one of their agents in Atlanta.”

  “No shit,” Deacon says and takes out a cigarette, but Downs points at the thank you for not smoking sign on the wall, the sign and a smoke detector, so Deacon curses and puts it back in the pack.

  “No shit. They got eighteen murders, all down the East Coast, all with the same MO as that Charles Ellis kid and that guy you led us to in the warehouse. Eighteen, Deacon, and now our three plus a kidnapping, in the past six months alone. Fucking heads in garbage bags, disemboweled corpses, missing organs, bite marks that don’t match human teeth, and that symbol—”

  “It’s the moon,” Deacon says.

  “What?”

  “The symbol. It’s the moon, rising or setting, I’m not sure which. Unless it’s the sun.”

  “When’d you figure that out?”

  “I didn’t. Sadie Jasper did. That’s why she’s in the hospital right now. She also thinks that Narcissa Snow believes she’s some kind of werewolf—”

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell us this already?”

  “What difference would it have made? You want to go back in there and tell those two suits that they’re looking for a woman who turns into a monster?”

  “You said she thinks she’s a werewolf. You didn’t say—”

  “I ain’t said jack shit, because there isn’t any point.”

  “They have a profile, from one of their people at Quantico.”

  “And it’s totally worthless,” Deacon says, reaching for a paper towel from the dispenser on the wall. “They’re probably looking for a man, white, let’s say someone between twenty-five and thirty-five, average appearance, below-average IQ—”

  “But you’ve already told them the killer’s a woman. You’ve given them her name.”

  “And how do you think that stacks up against their computers and some BSU think-tank nerd with a PhD? Do you know how rare female serial killers are?”

  “I have an idea,” Downs says. “But there are precedents. I think they’re starting to believe they’re looking for a woman, or at least a cross-dresser.”

  “Oh Jesus,” Deacon laughs and wipes his face with the paper towel, then balls it up, tosses it at a toilet bowl and misses. “So they’re after a transvestite with a pit bull?”

  “Deacon, what if you’re wrong? What if Chance isn’t dead?”

  “I’ve heard enough of this for one day, okay?”

  “We have APBs out based on your description of this woman. You said she had yellow eyes. Now, how many people you think have yellow eyes? Sooner or later, someone’s going to spot her.”

  “What I see isn’t always true,” Deacon groans and rubs at the back of his neck, the sore tendons there, only wanting the detective to shut up and let him go back to the motel. “How many times do I have to say that? Maybe she only wants to have yellow eyes. Maybe it’s part of some fantasy. Maybe she wears yellow contact lenses whenever she kills people. Maybe she’s a hepatitis carrier—”

  “Or maybe she has yellow eyes,” Downs says, and Deacon shakes his head and looks at the floor, the white ceramic tile with flecks of gold.

  “Yeah, and maybe she’s a fucking werewolf,” Deacon mumbles.

  “Look, man, I don’t care if I gotta go lookin’ for the pope in a goddamn pink bunny suit, as long as we find her and get your wife back in one piece.”

  “So what exactly do you want me to say, Downs? You wanted me to touch the wall, so I touched the fucking wall. You wanted me to answer a few questions, so I answered your questions. Now what the hell do you want?”

  “The same thing those two assholes from the FBI want. I want you to stop lying and tell me the truth.”

  “You’re assuming I know the truth.”

  “I’m assuming you know a lot more than you’re telling anyone. For starters, who’s the girl in the hospital?”

  “Sadie Jasper?” Deacon asks and kicks at a loose, cracked tile. “Well, her mother calls her Sarah.”

  “No, dickhead, the girl named Jane. The one Narcissa Snow attacked out behind your apartment not two hours after you were seen with her at that bar.”

  “Oh,” Deacon says. He kicks the tile again and half of it pops out of place and goes sliding across the floor. The empty space it leaves is the color of ripe avocado skin. “That girl. Did you try asking her?”

  “Yeah. And she’s even less talkative than you.”

  “She’s just someone that tried to help,” Deacon says.

  “Well, let me tell you something else about her. When she wouldn’t give us a name and we couldn’t find any sort of ID on her, we ran her fingerprints. And we got a match, for a baby girl named Eliza Helen Morrow who was abducted from her home in Connecticut back in 1986. Kinda weird, huh?”

  Deacon doesn’t answer, keeps his eyes on the hole left by the missing tile, remembering her thumbs pressed against his open eyes. Remembering the secret, unthinkable things she showed him.


  “Turns out, there’s a whole slew of unsolved infant abductions from Connecticut for that year and the next. And a few from Rhode Island and Massachusetts, to boot. So, tell me something, Deacon. When do the coincidences stop being just coincidences?”

  “That’s something I’ve been asking myself my whole life,” Deacon says and looks back up at the detective.

  “I know it seems like it’s easier to go ahead and give up now than hope she’s still alive somewhere. I know that, Deacon.”

  The restroom door opens, and a very short man with a toupee and a yellow tie stands staring at them for a moment.

  “Am I interrupting something?” he asks.

  “Can I talk to her?” Deacon asks Downs. “To Jane, I mean.”

  “You can try,” Downs replies.

  “Without any cops around?”

  Downs glances thoughtfully at the man in the toupee. “I’ll see what I can do,” he says.

  “I’m not making any promises,” Deacon tells him.

  “Hey guys, you know, I can go downstairs,” the man says, but looks longingly towards the stalls.

  “No,” Downs says. “I think we’re finished for now. Be my guest,” and then he walks Deacon back down the hall to the elevator.

  Another hospital, this one only a few city blocks south of the great gray Federal Building, over the railroad tracks and past a squalid wasteland of vacant lots and fast-food drive-thrus. Deacon stops at a package store on the way and buys two bottles of Jack Daniel’s and a fifth of scotch, three packs of cigarettes, puts it all on one of his credit cards. Enough to last a day or two, maybe even enough to beat this headache, and he drinks half of one of the bottles of Jack in the parking deck of Cooper Greene Hospital before he can find the nerve he needs to get out of Chance’s Impala and go inside. Downs promised that he wouldn’t have any trouble seeing her, but there would be a guard, because she’s being held in protective custody.

  Another hospital and another elevator, and Deacon’s beginning to think he’s going to spend the rest of his life riding goddamn elevators. At least this one doesn’t buzz or ding to count off the floors, though the gears and cables creak and groan as it hauls him up. There’s an old black man in the elevator with him who smells of menthol and wintergreen; the man smiles at Deacon and keeps shifting his dentures around in his mouth.