Death Falls by Todd Ritter Page A

grim nature of their conversation, Nick allowed himself a proud smile. He had taught her well.
    “Why do you think so?” he asked.
    “Fairmount. I’ve never heard of it and I’ve spent my entire life in this state. So if I haven’t heard of it, then there are a lot of other people who never have, either. Unless they lived there. Same goes for Centralia. A killer doesn’t go back to the scene of a crime—”
    “Unless he never left,” Nick said. “So our perp would have lived in Centralia in 1972. When did the Fairmount incidents occur?”
    “Dennis Kepner vanished in 1969.” Kat leaned over the board and checked the article for Noah Pierce. Once again, she found herself lifting the fragile newspaper to see the date that was partially printed on the other side. “February fifth, 1971.”
    She could tell from the date’s size and placement that it had been located on the newspaper’s front page. And just below it, in much larger type, was the day’s top headline:
    MAN PAYS THIRD VISIT TO THE MOON.
    A small shiver hurried up her arms and seemed to zap directly into her heart, making it beat faster. She thought back to ornery Owen Peale and his recollections about the night Charlie Olmstead vanished. It happened on July 20, 1969.
    “The moon,” she whispered. “Just like Charlie.”
    Nick had been watching her with his face scrunched in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
    “Charlie Olmstead, the first victim, disappeared the night man first walked on the moon. Noah Pierce, our third missing kid, vanished the same day astronauts landed for the third time.”
    Through the doorway of the dining room, Kat had a clear view of the kitchen. Sitting on the counter was Eric’s laptop. She rushed to it and immediately did a Google search. A few clicks later, she was on NASA’s official Web site, looking at the dates of all the Apollo moon landings.
    The first was July 20, 1969, which they had already established was when Charlie vanished.
    “When did Dennis Kepner go missing?” she called to Nick, who remained in the dining room.
    A second passed as Nick checked the board. “November nineteenth, 1969.”
    Kat looked to the Web site and found the date. November 19 was the same day
Apollo 12
landed on the moon.
Apollo 14
—and Noah Pierce—both occurred February 5, 1971.
    “That explains the gap,” Kat said.
    Nick poked his head into the kitchen. “What?”
    “Almost a year and a half passed between the second abduction and the third,” she said. “The reason was
Apollo 13
.”
    The crew of that famous mission never actually made it to the moon. According to Maggie Olmstead’s map, no boy from Pennsylvania suddenly vanished, either. It couldn’t have been a coincidence.
    Nick returned to the board in the dining room and read the other three dates to Kat—July 30, 1971, April 21, 1972, and December 11, 1972.
Apollo 15
,
Apollo 16
, and
Apollo 17.
Dwight Halsey, Frankie Pulaski, and Bucky Mason.
    When Kat returned to the dining room, she looked at the board with fresh eyes. Six successful moon landings. Six missing boys. And one person sticking to a deranged schedule that spanned years.
    “We need to tell Eric,” she said.
    She found him on the back porch, slumped into a lawn chair that looked as bedraggled as he did. His beer bottle, now empty, sat at his feet. He took a drag off his cigarette as he stared out at the backyard. Kat settled into the chair next to him.
    “There’s something we need to tell you.”
    Eric’s voice was emotionless as he said, “I know. I overheard you and Nick talking inside.”
    “How much did you hear?”
    “That if Neil Armstrong hadn’t stepped on the moon that day, my brother might still be alive. Isn’t that the gist of it?”
    “It is. And I’m sorry.”
    “When I found out my mother wanted me to do this, I didn’t think anything would come of it,” Eric said. “I figured I’d hire Nick, give him some money, and let him poke around a few days. I