Hangman: A Novel by Stephan Talty Page A

sets of feet, three of them definitely female, two male, one undetermined. The engine sounded again, and the tall side of the bus was pulled away like a curtain at a theater, all at once, and there were six students standing and laughing in three groups.
    From across the street, Hangman’s eyes quickly swept over the six figures, their mouths moving in gossip, the thin arms gesturing excitedly. Behind the scarf, he frowned deeply. Then his gaze moved right to the girl moving on the edge of the second group. His heart seized up as he stared at the face behind a scrim of blowing brunette hair that she caught awkwardly with the third finger of her right hand and swept back behind her ear. His eyes were avid now and he watched her step down off the curb and walk toward him with two friends, not even bothering to check both ways before crossing the street, confident of being protected by the world as all teenagers are.
    The girl came toward him and he let the scarf fall away, revealing his open mouth, so intent was he on her brown eyes.

12
    The entrance to the escape scene was hard to miss. There was a line of cop and sheriff cars tilted down into the ditches on both sides of the road as the van slowed on the country lane. Uniformed men bent over the open trunks of cars, getting equipment out. The sheriffs wore clear plastic caps over their hats and yellow slickers.
    Just like Attica in ’71, Abbie thought. These grim, square-jawed faces, like the ones of soldiers on Russian monuments to World War II, were the same as those cops. From those newsreels, she’d always thought of the men out here as some kind of other species. Killers, really.
    “Here you go,” the van driver said as they pulled up to the entrance to a small lane to the left.
    “Don’t leave me.”
    The driver nodded as Abbie dropped to the street. She let a car pass—behind the wheel, a fat-faced blond woman with eyes wide as she stared at the cops massed by the entrance before speeding off. Abbie hung her badge around her neck and let it rest on her black wool coat, then strode up the lane, her leather boots squelching in the mud. Cops coming the other way glanced briefly at her, some opened their mouths, then spotted the badge and went back to their conversations.She walked five minutes before the trees to her left and right, which had huddled above her, their branches interweaving, began to space out and then fell away. The ruts of the lane petered out and she walked onto a grassy clearing.
    There was a white van with NY STATE CORRECTIONS written in blue on the side. The sliding door was open and men were watching something in the backseat. Abbie walked over.
    A sheriff’s deputy turned, feeling her presence as she walked up. He nodded and touched the tip of his wide-brimmed hat. Country manners.
    “Hi,” she said. “What’s going on in there?”
    “A re-creation,” he said quietly. “Seeing if Hangman could really have gotten out of the restraints. They fixed Williamson up just like he left Auburn and put a key in his mouth. He’s our best tech guy.”
    “Our” would refer to the Wyoming County Sheriff’s Department, by the patch on his heavy olive-colored nylon jacket.
    “How’d he do?”
    “Took him three tries but he got it. The seat belt, believe it or not, played a big part. If it was loose enough for him to lean forward, then Hangman could have gotten the key down to his hands and spit it out. Then he got Fatty Joe’s gun. He was a good guy. I knew him.”
    The deputy brought up his iPhone, and stared at it.
    “That a picture?” Abbie said.
    “Yup.” He handed her the phone. “People’ve been sending it around.”
    Fatty Joe Carlson was smiling, standing in front of a late-model Corvette, his arm around a young boy in a football outfit. Abbie peered closely at the image. Carlson was dressed in a richly colored Missoni sweater—the kind with the wavy stripes—and pressed jeans. She spotted the watch on his wrist, which had a