Hangman: A Novel

by Stephan Talty

  She spotted something shiny five feet to her left and up a bit. She scrambled along the little ledge until she reached it. Shotgun shell, half-planted in the dirt, already rusting, the brass base shining slightly. Abbie tossed it down the hill.

  She was turning to assume the crab position when she saw something else. It was down eight or nine feet, a ball of something blue caught in the root of a scraggly purple flower. Abbie’s brow creased as she walked carefully toward it. She slid, catching plants with her hand to keep her from tumbling down the slope. A yellow-topped weed came away in her hand and she swung away from the hill, feeling herself tip backward. She went with the momentum and turned all the way over, collapsing onto the hill on her back.

  “Careful now,” someone cried from up top.

  If you were so concerned, she thought, you’d throw down a rope.

  Abbie took a breath and turned her head to the left. There it was, rocking slightly in the wind. The glossy blue surface shone in the sun. Paper.

  Abbie inched over, her throat dry from the dust. She crouched, her fingers scrabbling in the weeds, inching toward the blue ball. Another couple of inches. Her rib cage felt like it was going to separate at the breastbone. She lunged the extra two inches and felt the thing in her hands. She breathed out, tucked it into her lapel pocket, and began the laborious climb upward.

  One of the deputies was waiting at the edge. He bent at the knees and offered her his hand.

  “Long way to go for a piece of trash,” he said.

  Abbie took his hand and he pulled her up with a strong tug. She vaulted up to the top of the hill and almost went tumbling the other way.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Might be something better than garbage,” she said. “Thanks.”

  She pulled it out of her pocket and put her thumbs into the center of the ball, then carefully pulled it flat. A glossy photo, ripped along the left side. A line of rowboats was tied to a pier with dark blue water lapping at their gunwales. A man pulling the oars of a rowboat while a woman leaned back on the front wooden seat, a look of rapture on her face.

  “Like I said, trash,” the man said, then walked off toward the Corrections van.

  Something far off rang in Abbie’s mind, like a bell. Have I been there, she thought, the place in the picture?

  Abbie smoothed the paper out against her palm. The paper crinkled as it unfolded. It was crisp, hadn’t been down there in the weeds for long.

  Not a photo. A brochure. And she’d seen this brochure, years before. But what was it for?

  “Wherewherewhere …” Abbie whispered.

  Rowing a boat on a lake during the summer. She’d always wanted to do that, had asked her father once, but he said it was for the swells. She didn’t get it at the time—“swells,” like waves in the water. And rich people.

  Abbie whipped out her phone, clicked on the web browser, and typed in “Hoyt Lake boat” in the search box. A website came up. “See the city in a whole new way!” said the banner headline. Underneath the picture unfolded slowly. The same skyline, the same tied-up boats. The same doofy couple.

  Hoyt Lake Boat Rentals, Abbie read. Hoyt Lake, in the middle of Delaware Park. In the North.

  A surge of panic went through her as she stared at the image.

  13

  Martha Stoltz slammed the front door of her house on Mill Lane, slung her schoolbag onto the leather couch, and headed straight upstairs. Her mother had asked her, no not asked, ordered Martha to scrub the tub the first thing after getting home from school. Martha was determined to get it done so she could have a text-storm with Jenn about what happened in Gym that morning. But first, chores. They were studying Italian fascism in History, and Martha had slowly come to the belief that her mother would have fit right in with Mussolini.

  The tub had been a problem ever since her mother had ordered it last fall. It had looked white and shiny when the workmen installed it but it was just about the hardest thing on earth to keep clean. The pebbly surface of the bottom seemed to grip the dirt, and her mother hated dirt. Martha was beginning to think that her mother had OCD or something. She couldn’t stand to see a drop of maple syrup on the counter or a streak of dirt—plain, normal old dirt—in the bathroom. She’d even been rehanging the clothes in Martha’s closet so that they looked perfect.

  The woman needed a vacation, or a boyfriend. A boyfriend would be more fun. Maybe she could go to his house and straighten the clothes in his closets and give Martha a break.

  Martha flicked on the bathroom light, sighed deeply at the sight of the dingy tub floor, then ducked down to the cabinet under the sink and found the Comet. Her mother would use only Comet, even though Martha told her the spray-and-wait cleaners worked just as well. She peeled back the label and breathed in. It was like sniffing glue, that first rush.

  The pseudo-high lasted about ten seconds, then the smell began to turn her stomach. Martha turned back, rooted under the sink for a scrubbing brush, found one beneath a box of tampons, and turned on the bath tap, soaking the sponge as she sprinkled the Comet liberally across the tub’s floor.

  Martha heard something, like a muffled shout. She paused for a second, but there was only silence and the wind rattling the electricity wires that attached to the house. She bent down and started to scrub.

  She worked the brush vigorously, determined to get the cleaning done fast. The sides were easy but soon she was despairing at the ridges between the tiny bumps. Her triceps muscle began to ache, and the tendons in her wrist soon followed. She switched the brush to the other hand with a sigh.

  Damn, damn, damn this tub, she thought.

  She heard the sound again. Was someone shouting?

  Martha spritzed the tub with water through her hand, spraying it to get the foamy residue, the color of sea foam, down the drain. She paused. That sound again. An echo of an echo.

  She turned off the water and cocked her head.

  The noise, now clearer. It was a dog barking.

  “Oh, that bitch,” Martha said out loud. She pulled a towel from the rack, rubbed her hands on it quickly, and walked toward the stairs.

  “Rufus?” she called out, her voice charged with concern.

  Rufus was her dog and he was afraid of the dark. He literally shook when you put him in the closet for ten seconds. Any longer than that he would turn into a writhing ball of terror. It was unconscionable to put him in a dark place. But she heard the dog’s muffled barking, which could only mean one thing: her mother had put Rufus in the basement again.

  Martha charged down the stairs, whipped around and headed for the kitchen. “Damnherdamnherdamn—”

  She slid into the kitchen and stopped. The sound was only slightly louder in here. Still an echo. Still far away. Was Rufus trapped down near the hot water boiler?

  “Ruf—” she said, yanking back the basement door. A clammy smell came wafting up toward her, and she peered into the darkness framed by the door. She felt a small tremor of fear. The basement had always repulsed her. It was like some kind of tunnel to the middle of the earth. She was always afraid things were going to crawl up into the darkness through a pipe, giant earthworms or eyeless slugs. She knew it was ridiculous, but it didn’t stop the feelings.

  The sound again, behind her. The barking wasn’t coming from down here. Rufus was outside.

  She heard her phone buzz in her schoolbag. Mom, for sure, wanting to check on the progress of the tub. God, that woman.

  She went to the back door and opened it and looked out over their enormous, overgrown backyard. Rufus had probably caught himself on the fence again, trying to shimmy underneath the chain link and catch one of the skinny rabbits that lived in the brush. His barking, though, was … hysterical. Nonstop.

  “Rufus!” she called and clambered down the steps, jogging lightly while she tried to fix his position from the barking, growing louder now. She’d forgotten her coat, and it was cold. The wind swept through the trees and the pines danced in rows down the middle
of the yard. She didn’t like going back there too far. Once you lost sight of the house, it felt like you were in a forest.

  “Rufus?”

  The dog was squealing. It must have gotten its head down one of the rabbit holes and scared itself to bits. That had happened before.

  Martha listened, scanning the trees. All she saw was brown on brown.

  “Rufus?” she said, shakily. Then louder: “Okay, boy, here I come.”

  Her phone rang again.

  “Not now, Mom.” She wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction.

  Martha wished she’d brought her coat. The wind was really cold and the branches of the scrub brush would scratch her bare arms as she followed the little trail that wild animals had cut through the yard.

  She called out ahead.

  “Rufus, calm down, it’s me.”

  Silence.

  Then, a little further on: “Where are you, boy?”

  The barking went higher, the dog’s vocal cords straining in fear, and Martha turned slightly left, pushing through a dry pricker bush. Oh God, don’t let him have stepped on a nail or something. Oh, Ruf—

  She pushed past a shaggy, squat pine tree and there was Rufus, or at least his snout, sticking up from the ground behind some swaying grass and brush. He must have tumbled into a hole, and being the little thing he was, couldn’t get out.

  Martha blew out a breath in relief. Now to get him out and into the warm house.

  Rufus stopped barking and began to whine, his snout shaking.

  She dropped to her knees. “Oh, Ruf, you dumb little boy. How’d you get down there?” He was in a hole, all right, behind a screen of wiry branches. He’d probably dug it on one of his expeditions, tearing through the dirt looking for God knows what.

  Behind the hole was a thick bush, untrimmed like everything back here, that looked as solid as a green wall. It was too cold to go around to it and search for a way in. Martha pushed her hands into the thin mesh of branches in front of her and brought her head in just behind, trying to get a look at what was holding the dog down.

  Across from her, a branch snapped.

  Martha, startled, looked up. A man in a red mask was watching her. He pulled on a rope that snaked through his hands and something rose up with a ripping sound.

  “Oh, God,” Martha cried and then the rope caught her throat.

  She gagged, her throat closed tight. The man gave a hard tug on the rope, bending over at the waist like he was swinging a pickax, and Martha’s feet lifted in the air and she was twirling.

  Twirling. Trees. Then blackness. Then the back of her house. Blackness. Different trees.

  Martha tore at the rope digging into her neck. She twisted slowly and on her second turn she saw the man with the red mask tying the end of the rope to a big elm.

  Spinning, slowly, around and around, the tops of the trees like one woven crown. There the house through the trees, then the green pines, then the man bending to pick up something. A bowling bag.

  Around she spun, the sunlight going dark. Two more turns and the man was standing in front of her. The red mask had holes for his eyes and mouth and it was tight on his face. The man reached out and grasped her leg, stopped her twirling.

  Martha gagged and kicked, stars exploding in her peripheral vision like fireworks, but it only made the rope dig deeper into her neck.

  “You’re about sixteen,” a voice said. A memory like a streak of blue light came to her in the spreading darkness, a song they used to sing on the playgrounds when she was a girl.

  Hangman, Hangman, what do you see?

  Lights sparked in her brain and then faded out. Blue, green …

  Four little girls, cute as can be.

  Brilliant red. With a gasp, the rope around her neck slackened and she fell hard to the ground. She clutched at the cord. It was still tight around her neck. Little specks of hot bright light jabbed at her brain. Her breath rasped in through her throat. She couldn’t scream, could barely breathe. The rope was still tight, choking off her oxygen, making her sleepy.

  The red mask came closer. He was kneeling down, studying her face. The eyes were in shadow.

  Martha spit something up. His eyes crinkled in concern and he wiped the spit from her cheek. He turned and she saw he was unzipping the bowling bag; it was an old one, like from the ’50s, pale almost yellow leather with tiny cracks and then red, dirty red leather with a gold zipper. He unzipped it slowly, the two sides of the bag parting like he wanted to make the moment last. Martha stared at the mouth of the bag as it opened. Her mind was dazy.

  What was inside the bag?

  Her head spun, voices singing dreamily to her.

  Hangman, Hangman, where do they go?

  She heard the zipper tugging along the steel teeth. The sound stopped and she stared at the black gaping mouth of the bag. The man’s hand going in.

  Down on the ground,

  Where the daffodils grow.

  14

  Abbie was running toward the spot where she’d left the van. Cops streamed by her in their long yellow rain slickers, like dusters in the Old West. She dialed a number on the phone.

  Perelli’s number rang three times before he picked it up.

  “Yeah?”

  “I found something at the escape scene,” Abbie said. “I think it comes from Hangman. It’s a brochure for Hoyt Lake. It’s fresh.”

  “Hoyt? Where’d he get it?”

  “Maybe it was in his papers. Maybe the guard brought it to him. But I think it means he’s headed for Buffalo.”

  Silence.

  Abbie took a deep breath. “You need to move the perimeter back to the city limits.”

  Perelli snorted. “Stop traffic coming in from the west? We can’t do it. We’ve all decided to try and trap him up there.”

  “Because you didn’t know where he was heading. Now we know. Roadblock the three exits downtown. It’s the likeliest route.”

  “Not if he comes in on 33. Or on foot. How do you even know the brochure was his?”

  “It came from him. It rained here last night, I just looked it up. The paper is dry. No one else comes up here. He’s thinking about Delaware Park.”

  More silence. Abbie knew she only had to think cop-wise. Perelli had to think of the politics of it, of TV stations, of the risk and reward in a larger picture.

  “Fuck, you’re right,” he said. “We’ll put up roadblocks on the three exit ramps off 90. Maybe we can do the same on 33.”

  Abbie waved to the van driver, thirty feet away, smoking by the side of the road. He tossed the cigarette into a ditch and turned back toward the van, with Abbie following.

  “One other thing,” she said. “The murdered guard was talking to Flynn in his cell, asking him about the last girl.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “Not sure yet.”

  “Raymond is on his way up to you. Meet him at the prison.”

  And he was gone.

  15

  Abbie heard the Saab before she saw it, the turbo protesting as the driver swung into the parking lot. She swung around. The Saab came whooshing up from between two parked trucks and the brakes shrieked as the driver pulled away at the last minute, missing her thigh by about three feet.

  Raymond nodded at her from behind the windshield.

  She walked to the driver’s door.

  “Move over,” she said.

  “I can drive.”

  “Not my car you can’t. Move over.”

  Abbie got in and shifted into drive. Gravel pelted against the undercarriage as she swerved in the parking lot and headed toward the exit. When they were out on the main road, she took the folded brochure out of her inside pocket and handed it to Raymond.

  “This the brochure?” he said. “Goddamn, you white people know how to enjoy yourselves. I didn’t even know they had rowboats out there.”

  “What’s Perelli doing?”

  Raymond whistled softly.

  “In about twenty-five minu
tes, there’s going to be the proverbial ring of blue steel around the city. Checking every car coming in. And now it’s your case.”

  Raymond flashed her a smile. Abbie felt her heart sink.

  I’m the last line of defense, Abbie thought. The city was going to lose its collective mind, and she would be the poster girl for the investigation. The quiet life on Elmwood Avenue, her sanctuary, seemed like a tiny black-and-white photo quickly receding into the distance. She thought of Mills, her boyfriend, and wished very badly that he was near her, touchable.

  The traffic was knotted in lines on 20A. She jumped off at an exit and tried the back roads. There the red brake lights winked back at her from the dark lanes. Night was falling. She caught sight of a huge looming shape—all spindly arms—and thought for a moment that an airplane was falling out of the sky and pitching nose-first into the earth, but realized it was a wind turbine. The farmers of Wyoming County were finally getting some return for the lonely windswept acres.

  So Hangman had turned ghost, evading the search parties that were tramping over the corn stubble and gliding past the barricades of the itchy-fingered troopers and town sheriffs. He was resurrecting his legend, turning his image from a pathetic brain-injured gimp that had been nearly forgotten back into what he was. A fiend, a killer of girls.

  They were starting to respect him again. Hangman would enjoy that, she thought.

  “I need you to check the bank accounts for the dead CO, Carlson,” said Abbie. “See if there are any large deposits in the last, say, six months.”

  “Why?”

  “Carlson was asking Hangman about the girls,” she said.

  Raymond’s eyes crinkled up in confusion. “When?”

  “Before he escaped.”

  “Before he escaped? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Sure it does,” Abbie said. “Someone else wants information. And they were willing to pay for it.”

  Raymond hummed. “Getting any financial info right now is gonna be tough. The family and the union won’t like us poking around in his personal life. He’s the only hero we have right now, you know.”

  “I know,” Abbie said, braking to avoid a slow truck, then accelerating along the breakdown lane. “But if we find out how he escaped, we might get accomplices. Hangman eluded capture for months. If he has an accomplice, they’re likely to be less skilled than he is.”