Bad Moon Rising (Pine Deep 3)

The candy was not precisely part of the Plan, but Vic had put it into play as a backup. The Plan was complicated and something could go wrong. If the Plan failed, or if any part of it misfired and the authorities came in before the Man rose, then the candy would be part of a cover story. And even if the Plan worked according to the Man’s vision and intention, it would be useful to muddy the waters for a while, at least until the Red Wave took hold and started sweeping toward both coasts. Ultra-high doses of hallucinogens were in the candy, more would be dumped into the town’s water supply, and at least a quarter of all the bottled water that would be sold to tourists was spiked with LSD or haloperidol.

Vic also had caches of white supremacist flyers hidden where the authorities could find them once an investigation started. An excellent cover story. Not towel-head terrorists but homegrown stuff. Very plausible, and Vic didn’t feel so much as a twinge of sympathy for his buddies in the white leagues who would take the hit for all this. Once the Man rose there would be a whole New Order and old loyalties wouldn’t mean a thing. All human connections would be broken forever.

Without warning an image of Lois popped into his head. It happened so suddenly that it jolted Vic, even though it was the fifth or sixth time it had happened today. Lois. For sixteen years she’d been his whore and his punch, and never once had he ever given a single moment’s serious consideration to the possibility that there were any genuine feelings for her anywhere in his heart. A month ago Vic would have laughed at the thought. Now she belonged to Ruger and suddenly there were conflicted feelings in Vic that he would have liked to reach in and tear out by the roots.

He didn’t want to feel a goddamn thing for her, or for anyone except the Man, yet there it was. The Man must have known all along, or must have gotten wind of it the way he does, because when Little Halloween went all to hell and Griswold vented his rage at Vic, Ruger, and all the others, there had been a special twist of the blade for Vic. To appease the Man, to earn back his favor, Vic had been asked for a sacrifice. The Man wanted him to give up Lois. Not just give her up—he wanted Vic to let Ruger have her.

That shouldn’t have hurt. Sure, maybe it should have stung his pride a bit, like the alpha dog having to yield up a favorite toy to a new puppy in the house, but it should not have hurt him deep inside.

He swallowed more beer and stared at his list without really reading the entries. It did hurt, though. It actually hurt.

3

Ferro said, “What’s this bullshit all about?”

Val leaned back in her chair and gave him a long, calculating look. “Frank, I want you and Vince to come with us to the hospital. Saul Weinstock has all of the forensics and video information and he’s willing to show you everything. ”

“Why should we go anywhere with you?”

“Because now that you’ve read that report you have to know the rest. ”

“No, we don’t,” said LaMastra, “it’s not our case anymore. What part of that can’t you people process?”

Ferro met Val’s stare and after a minute he said, “Be quiet, Vince. ”

LaMastra pivoted in his seat and stared at him. “What?”

“She’s right,” Ferro said. “There’s something very wrong here and we have to know what’s going on. ”

Crow exhaled a long breath, but Val didn’t look convinced. “Are you saying that you understand what’s going on…that you understand what those reports indicate?”

“No,” Ferro snapped. “I’m saying that someone has either screwed up a crucial phase of the investigation, or else these folks are pulling some kind of shit. In either case I want to know what’s going on. ” He looked hard at Val. “And if there’s something hinky with this don’t think my sympathies for your losses are going to cut you any slack. ”

“All we want you to do is look at the evidence,” she said.

“Okay. We’ll go that far, but as of now I’m putting you all on notice. This is police business and you are a bunch of local yokels who are not cops. ” He stared hard at Crow. “And I don’t give a rat’s ass if you used to wear a badge, Mr. Crow. That was then, this is now. ”

“Frank,” said Val, her blue eyes dark and unblinking, “if, after seeing what Dr. Weinstock has, you want to arrest us, then so be it. If we can’t convince you with what we have to show, then jail is going to be the safest place for all of us to be. ”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ferro demanded.

Val just gave him an enigmatic smile and called for the check.

4

Sergeant Jim Polk finished his coffee and stepped out into the sunlight of October 30. Though the forecast called for a storm later, the sky of early afternoon was a cold blue dome dotted with crows circling high above. The sunlight was warm on his face and Polk indulged himself by standing there, face tilted upward, eyes closed, enjoying the warmth.

“Trying to get a tan, Jim?”

Polk opened his eye to see Gus Bernhardt’s florid, sweating face beaming at him from the passenger window of Unit C1, the command vehicle of the town’s small fleet of cruisers. Gus was chewing a mouthful of gum so big he looked like a cow with a cud and Polk resisted the urge to spit on him. Instead he pasted on a genial smile.

“Afternoon, Chief,” he said. “Nice day for it, huh?”

“Sunshine brings in the tourists,” Gus said, as if that’s what Polk meant; and at least that much was true because the town around them had swollen to bursting with tourists. Thousands upon thousands of them—overnighters and day-trippers, kids and adults, families and school groups. They were everywhere, going in and out of the stores like lines of worker ants. Laughing, all of them. Everyone seemed to be having tremendous fun.

Polk hated them all. He hated the smiles on their faces, he hated the hands that lovers held, he hated the grins on the faces of the kids as they showed each other the costumes they’d bought for tomorrow night. Speakers on the lampposts played music, and Polk swore to himself that if he heard one more goddamn rendition of “Monster Mash” he was going to take his hunting rifle and climb to the top of the Methodist Church and just plain open up.

“You drink your lunch today, Jim?”