The Killing Moon: A Novel

"Today's a good day," said Pinty, patting his hip. "Not a bad day."

"How about a chair?"

"Never would get up out of it."

"I'd have built a float for you, if I'd known. Sit you up there on a throne."

"I would like that. That's about my style."

"This town should throw you a parade. They will, someday." Donny crossed his arms, implacable behind his sunglasses. "They better."

Pinty smiled, not at Donny's words, but at his respect. "Two hundred fifty years," he said, gesturing at the parade like a symphony conductor demanding more out of an orchestra. "Older than the country itself. A hell of a long time."

"Maybe too long," said Maddox.

"Think of what all this land looked like to the colonists and trappers who first walked down from the hills."

Maddox said, "Think of what the colonists and trappers must have looked like to the Pequoigs already settled here."

That was Donny's habit, his role, the town contrarian. Pinty never took it seriously, this rebelliousness Donny had held on to since his teens. Donny always thought he was too big for Black Falls. And when he was younger, he was right. He'd won the college scholarship, and everybody expected big things. Now, fifteen years later, he was back, and nobody knew what to make of him.

The town plow sander came rumbling along, sputtering its diesel exhaust. Black Falls' two major municipal purchases in the past decade were: the new flag and pole, after 9/11; and the fork-bladed plow. No town in the Cold River Valley could survive winter without one of these immense road clearers.

Above the BLACK FALLS HIGHWAY DEPT. stenciled into the driver's side door sat Kane Ripsbaugh, his bare, sun-chapped elbow jutting through the open window as he kept the angry-looking plow at an even five miles an hour. The word "highway" used to be defined as any public way, and showed that the department and its facilities—the garage farther east on Main, the salt and sand sheds, the town dump—dated back to the early days of the automobile.

Ripsbaugh was the one-man highway department, a position he had held for the last three decades. Some, such as Donny, would say that Ripsbaugh's longevity was due to the job offering hard, physical work for little pay and zero prestige. But Pinty viewed Ripsbaugh's role as an honorable one, and knew that Ripsbaugh did too. A town like Black Falls could not get by without a Kane Ripsbaugh. He was as day-to-day instrumental in its upkeep as was Pinty, though the two men could not have been more different. It was funny, to Pinty, how withdrawn Ripsbaugh was, that a man so devoted to his community could be so indifferent to his neighbors at the same time.

So it was indeed possible to love a place and not necessarily adore its people. This was something Pinty needed to communicate more successfully to Donny.

Donny said, "You notice who's missing this morning?"

Pinty turned right away, looking down to the end of the parade route, the junction of Main and Number 8 Road. The house on the corner there was divided into twin apartments upstairs and down, with the upstairs tenant, who was also the owner, having the advantage of a large balcony built above the front door.

That was where Dillon Sinclair usually stood, leaning against the iron rail, dressed all in black like an undertaker, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and watching the town pass below him.

Pinty noted the look of concern on Donny's face. Pinty said, "It's not like him to miss a parade."

Black Falls was currently home to nine registered sex offenders, four Level 2s and five of the more dangerous Level 3s. This was a regional concern. Publicity generated by the sex offender registry was effectively chasing offenders from more populated, organized, and affluent towns into smaller, remote communities. Nine out of the top ten Massachusetts communities in sex offenders per resident were rural towns far west of Boston. Out of 351 total cities and towns statewide, tiny Black Falls ranked eighth.

Dell Stoddard went rolling past in his prized 1969 yellow Mustang convertible sponsored by Stoddard's Auto Body, playing loud surfing music that in no way jibed with the mood of the moment or of the town. Two women in sun hats made their way along the sidewalk toward Pinty, Paula Mithers under a wide, curled brim of straw, followed by her grown daughter, Tracy, sporting a beat-to-hell cowgirl-style number. The mother wore a gardening shirt, Bermuda shorts, and muck boots fresh from the barn. The daughter wore an oversized T-shirt knotted at the waist and cutoff jean shorts, her knees and elbows grayed with dry mud.

The Mithers women raised llamas on a little farm over on Sam Lake. Middle-aged Paula had a face most would describe as handsome, etched with deep lines by sun and divorce, while twenty-two-year-old Tracy was sun-freckled and slim, petite yet somehow leggy, blond hair washing out of the back brim of her cowgirl hat.

"Hi, Chief Pinty," said Tracy.

"Not 'Chief,' Tracy," said Pinty, correcting her gently. "Just Pinty."