A Cold Copper Moon (The Cooper Series Book 3)

by Richard Conrath

  “And they—”

  They now?

  “—lied to me.” He paused, “And they kept me, the men who took me, and the Man who never let me out of his house...I couldn’t...”

  He’s apologizing! I thought.

  “…and I’m so sorry for what I did...”

  Still apologizing.

  “…I got into a car when you told me never—“

  “Stop, Maxie,” I said softly—sick that he should feel he had to apologize. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” I heard Jillie say the same thing in the background.

  Maxie was crying now, and I was horrified at what I was hearing, his voice coming in and out, “I thought of it all the way to the house in South Carolina...”

  South Carolina? I cringed at what must have been going through his mind—my poor son—

  “How you and Mom warned me, and I hoped you wouldn’t be mad—you know, that I didn’t listen.” He stammered through most of it. “And I caused so much trouble...”

  I wanted to kill them.

  “…and I was hoping that maybe you had seen me...”

  Oh my God—I could picture it—Maxie looking out the window of the car, back at the house. Had I dreamed that?

  “...or Mom...”

  I could see her at the screen and Maxie looking for her...Had I dreamed that as well?

  “ …and that you would find me...” His voice was shaking, fighting off tears, “and I’m sorry, Dad, that I got into the car...”

  I was fighting off tears, but I didn’t want him to know, to get upset.

  “…and sometimes I thought maybe your car was behind us...” He was sobbing now, “but then I fell asleep...”

  I said, “Yes, you fell asleep, Maxie. That was good.” My heart skipping beats.

  “I did,” he continued, “then first thing I knew...” He hesitated...catching his breath, maybe, or wiping tears. “We were there...”

  I could picture it—this place in South Carolina—his new home.

  “…and the Man said that you said that he was supposed to take care of me because something had happened to you and Mom, and then later he said you were both killed—in an automobile accident...”

  An automobile accident! What kind of insanity was that? It was a horror story. But it was my horror story.

  “It’s okay,” I said, knowing that it wasn’t, and I wanted to reach out and hug him. Eight years. I had counted every day, of each year, and the hours, and the minutes and sometimes, when it was dark, and I was alone with my thoughts, even the seconds.

  I waited for more...

  “And the Man who took me was here—“

  “Here?” Cutting him off. “Where?” Then realized that I was loud and probably scared the hell out of him. Richie and Louise pulled back.

  “Tell me that again?” I said, more softly. Then Jillie got on the phone, talking in a quiet voice to Maxie, It’s okay, honey. I could picture her running her hands through his hair—he had such thick hair, curly, with a summer sun color of blond—at least back when he was just a boy. I wondered what it was like now.

  “He was here,” Jillie said, sounding strange. “But he’s gone now.” But I couldn’t imagine what she was talking about.

  “Who?” I said. “Tell me who was there.”

  I paused to make sure I understood. “You mean, the man who took our son?” And I tried to be calm. But I couldn’t. “So... who?” I yelled into the phone. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Henry,” she said—then a long pause—and the line went quiet, and Richie, and Louise, and Huck, and Wong were all staring at me, and all I could do was stare at the phone, as if that were the culprit. Finally, she continued, “The man who dated me in Georgetown.”

  In case I didn’t know which fucking Henry.

  “The man who has been calling me these last few weeks for dates, the man I talked to you about, Coop, and I’m so sorry...” She was stumbling around and getting hysterical, “And now I find out he’s the one who’s had our son, Coop, our Maxie, all these years... That’s who. The bastard!” She started crying, so hard, but I couldn’t do anything...

  So finally, when she became quiet, I said, “It’s okay,” but I really didn’t mean okay, what I really meant to say was When I kill him—that bastard—then it will be okay.

  I could picture Henry, and I wanted to say, to Jillie, How could you be so stupid? But I knew that was wrong—and I wanted to say, Are you sure? but that would be dumb because she had just said it was Henry, the guy I knew from Georgetown, the guy studying medicine, the guy that had dated Jillie—before I met her—the... He took Maxie? I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it, ran my hand through my hair.

  Richie said, What? and Louise too. I was staring out over the room, like it was empty, wondering if I was just dreaming all this. I had dreamed of Maxie’s kidnapping. The car. The road. I could picture it. And now here it was: the man, the man who I knew from Georgetown—he dated Jillie back then—before I met her. This is the guy who took our son?!

  “Why would he do that?” I said, when I finally got back on the cell. More of a statement than a question. And a dumb one, I knew.

  “I don’t know,” she said, trying to answer. She was still crying, but softly now. I had scared her. Made her feel guilty. I had done enough of that.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s not your fault.” But she thought it was. But I was not going to blame her for anything. Not anymore.

  I glanced over at Richie, and maybe he saw the rage in me, or maybe he overheard Jillie talking, or maybe he was a mind reader…but there was that look in his eyes, like the one when we were kids, when someone in our neighborhood got fucked over, and we had to go out to wreak our kind of justice. Richie with his baseball bat. And in those days I had a gun I had stolen. See, I’m not such a nice guy. I never used a baseball bat. Too messy. But now...

  “I’m on my way,” I said to Jillie.

  Chapter One Hundred Two

  Muskingum of O.H.I.O

  Saturday Evening, December 10

  It was about a half hour after the phone call, when the Boy had learned his father was alive and the Man had lied—all those years—that we find Charley and Joey sitting in Maxie’s old kitchen, where Jillie had put some biscuits in the oven (the Boy remembered the smells) and had made some coffee, and Maxie was thinking back to the coffee shop.

  And, the Boy knew, the moment he saw the second car pull out and follow the Man’s car, he knew it was the Asp. He wondered how he had found him. Maybe seeing his bike near the bus station, or maybe asking the agent about a kid who purchased a one-way ticket to Muskingum, Ohio, or maybe he just figured Where else would the kid go? Home, of course. And that would be Muskingum, Ohio. Running away from home to go home.

  And if the Boy had followed Henry, he would have seen both cars parked tail-to-front, and the Man would be talking to the Asp, both standing on the side of the road, face-to-face, talking with great animation, on US Route 40, one of the 1926 national highways that at one time crossed the entire country, east to west, but today the place where the Man got the news that Maxie had run away, and guess where he had gone? To none other than Muskingum of O.H.I.O. And he is at the house of the woman he had just kissed, and dated, and slept with, and just now left. He learned this on the side of the road, just east of Anthony’s Antique Shop.

  “I think he’s coming back,” Maxie blurted out, like an announcement on TV that an alien craft had just landed, and they all turned to him, but no one spoke, not Charley, not Jillie, not Joey. They just looked at him, awaiting further explanation. So he went on about the black car that had been sitting down the street from their house, almost directly across from Anthony’s Antique Shop, and about the man in the car who had followed him from South Carolina, and about how the car pulled out when the Man’s car passed it, and that the Asp was probably telling him everything right about now—which, in fact, he was. And that, in further fact, the Man would proba
bly be coming back.

  It was almost as if Maxie hadn’t stopped speaking, which he had, because no one spoke. Like it was time to meditate on all this crazy talk, about this strange man who followed Maxie—if he really had—about whether the Man would risk coming back now that they knew he was the one who, eight years earlier, on a summer morning, had taken Maxie. And Charley and Joey were still trying to absorb this whole thing.

  So Charley said, “Why would he come back? That’s crazy. He should be running.”

  Maxie said, “Oh, he’s going to come back,” and maybe kill me, he thought.

  The room was silent as they all listened to Maxie’s words. And if a sparrow had returned from Florida in the dead of winter and was sitting on the roof of Anthony’s Antique shop, just down the street from where the Asp had parked, if that bird made the slightest sound at all, it would have echoed through the room.

  Chapter One Hundred Three

  Home

  “The Coast Guard helicopter will drop you off at the airport,” said Wong. Then, noticing my concern, he added quickly, “And your bags are already on board the copter—I noticed that you brought some hardware with you,” he added, smiling like he knew our little secret.

  “But—” I began.

  “No buts. I’ll take care of everything from here. Your plane will be waiting for you on the tarmac when you get there. So, gotta hurry,” he urged. “You got problems with your son to deal with.” He took a breath and grasped my shoulders firmly. “Be safe, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “About Miss Hayward, I’ll contact her, tell her what’s happened.” He paused. “Li Lang is awake,” he continued. “We talked. And it looks like we got Jack’s killers. Her fan-boys.”

  “What are you going to do with her?” I said, not sure I should press.

  “She disgraced her family. She disgraced me. It would have been better if you had let her die.” He spat out those last words. “But now...” He floated away in his thoughts. I wondered what he would do with his niece.

  “But now you go!” he continued, suddenly, pushing me topside. “Louise is already on board.”

  The copter was chopping away at the wind like a giant reaper. And in the open door, Louise was waving for me to hurry.

  “You take care of your family,” Wong yelled, as he gave me a boost up through the hatch.

  I felt like I was leaving one war zone and driving into another. Then I saw Richie sitting across from Louise. “Hey buddy, Uncle Richie’s gonna take care of tings.” He slapped an empty seat next to him.

  “Where’s Huck?” I said.

  “He and Wong are doing cleanup,” yelled Louise as the chopper began to lift off the cutter. “Said he would see you on the other side of the night.”

  I fell against Richie as the copter angled sharply and left the cutter behind. It was half-past five. I was a prisoner of time. I wished I could stop it until I got to my son and Jillie.

  After what seemed an eternity, a mass of light began to creep over the eastern horizon like a sunrise. It was Miami, coming to life as the evening began to settle in.

  We were hovering over Miami International at 6:25 p. m. “Secretary Wong has arranged for your flight and your transportation when you arrive at Port Columbus,” said the pilot as he dropped the copter on the tarmac next to a small turbo-jet. The ladder was down, and a flight attendant was waiting at the door.

  “Have a good flight,” the pilot yelled over the noise of the copter beating away at the air as it began to lift off the ground.

  We grabbed our bags and hurried up the airstairs of the jet, the attendant checking the bags at the door.

  “Welcome aboard,” he said, taking our bags and stowing them near the exit. “There’s plenty of room. I’ll serve some refreshments when we are in flight.”

  There were eight plush, light tan leather seats in all. Four on each side of the aisle facing each other, a serving table in the middle. Richie sat alone, Louise and I faced each other across the narrow aisle from Richie. Geez, is all I heard from Richie as he settled in, leaned back in his seat, and closed his eyes.

  I called Jillie again as we got seated. Still no answer. I wasn’t surprised. Probably busy with Maxie. Yet...? I thought about calling the local cops but dismissed that, figuring Jillie would have done that if she needed to. And we would be there in a few hours anyway.

  We were in the air by 6:45. I couldn’t wait to see the sea of light from the city disappear. As we circled away from Miami and out over the Atlantic, the pilot cut the interior lights, and that left only the dim illuminations, outlining the aisle. I stared out the window and watched the lights from the city fade into the darkness. Soon the only thing visible was my own reflection. I leaned in to study it more closely. The person I saw there was no one that I knew.

  The pilot announced that we were at 20,000 feet and out over the Atlantic. I continued to worry about why Jillie hadn’t answered her phone.

  Chapter One Hundred Four

  The Man

  “Guess what?” said Joey, pointing out the front window toward Route 40. “I think they’re back,” and they all crowded the window to see. Two cars had pulled up and parked on the highway, just below the house.

  “Oh, God. That’s the black car I saw,” said Maxie, his eyes wide as he stared at two men climbing out of the cars.

  “You have a gun?” said Charley in a whisper, pulling Jillie away from the window and away from Joey and Maxie.

  “Yes,” she said, “under the bed in the master bedroom,” pointing toward a door off the living room. “It’s a shotgun,” she said, and then grabbed Maxie and Joey and followed Charley into the bedroom. “You two stay in here!” she ordered.

  Charley was down on both knees searching under the bed. He reached in and slid out a black case and opened it. Jillie knelt next to him and lifted the shotgun out of the case while Charley pulled back in surprise. Then she grabbed some shells that were loose in the case and began punching them into the chamber.

  “Five shot,” she said, breathing hard, looking every bit like a woman who would kill to protect her child.

  “Let me do this,” said Charley, reaching for the gun.

  “No way!” said Jillie, as she got up and headed for the living room.

  She opened the front door, then the screen, and planted herself on the front porch, to the right of the swing where she and Cooper and Maxie would spend summer nights watching the traffic (there was never much) and listen to the sound of the cicadas. Then she raised the shotgun, a 16 gauge Mossberg, pump action, with a long barrel and scope, and pointed it at the two men who were coming up the embankment. They both stopped and raised their hands, Henry saying Take it easy there, I just want to talk, the Asp edgy, staring hard at her, and Jillie not changing her stance, the shotgun still leveled at them and Henry and the Asp drifting slowly apart from each other—divide and conquer—and Jillie shouting out Don’t move! and then both of them freezing, Henry calm, thinking, and then…

  “Let’s go inside and talk,” he said. She knew he was buying time, that he knew she hadn’t called the police—there were no sirens and this is a small town; knew that she must be scared—and this is where they were wrong; knew that he could have his way with her—they had slept together, hadn’t they?

  Jillie, surprising him, said, “Sure, let’s go inside.”

  A little too quickly for Henry’s comfort, but he started forward anyway and told the Asp to stay outside, let him take care of this. The Asp nodded, lowered his hands, and stayed where he was until Jillie opened the front door, Henry following about twenty feet behind.

  Then the Asp moved.

  Once Jillie was inside, Charley asked for the gun and went into the bedroom, closed the door. He and Joey went to the window to watch where the Asp was going. Joey acted the commentator, whispering, Uh-oh, he’s moving to the back of the house.

  Charley putting his finger to his lips, shhh, and nodding.

  In the meantime, Maxie had re
treated when Henry mounted the porch stairs. He heard each step as the Man crossed the porch and he heard the screen door open and then the inside door, and their voices—Jillie’s and the Man’s, Jillie angry and threatening and saying that he will spend the rest of his goddamned life in prison for what he did, and so on and on until Maxie could take it no more and hurried up the stairs before Henry came through the door, and sealed himself in his bedroom on the second floor, his very room, and all the toys were still there! His Lionel train set—the tracks taken apart now and sitting in a box in his closet, the door wide open as if waiting for him, each car lined up on a book shelf his dad had built into the closet to hold all of his stuff: the tracks, the buildings, the men, the lights, the switching stations, the two tunnels. And his bed. It was the same one he had slept in eight years ago. He could hear their voices in the living room, loud, his mom shouting at times, Henry arguing, but he blocked his ears. Downstairs, Henry was explaining to Jillie why he had done what he had. But Maxie didn’t hear any of it. He had stuck his fingers into his ears.

  “See, I didn’t hear about your baby—actually my son—”

  Jillie drew in a breath like a vacuum cleaner just starting up, but the Man ignored it.

  “—until a little over eight years ago, and I counted the months and yes, even the days, from the time Maxie was born back to our dating, and our love making, and you were with me, Jillian, you had not met Cooper yet. Then you met Cooper and both of you left town with your little PhD degrees and my baby!” His voice was rising to a crescendo. And as his face grew redder his voice got louder, so much so that Charley and Joey charged out of the bedroom, Charley, carrying the shotgun across his chest. What they saw was Jillie, visibly upset, angry, shaking, and Henry screaming at her. Then Henry turned, saw Charley with the shotgun, pulled a revolver from his coat pocket—small, silver, short-barreled—aimed at Charley and shot him.