The Wolfman

by Nicholas Pekearo

  That was a good thing. For all I knew, the police might have a print or a witness that they weren’t revealing to the media. I was hoping that was the case because there were only four days left until the next full moon, and I had failed once at taking the Rose Killer down and more people died because of that. I didn’t want it to happen again.

  It meant something that the killer had left his victim’s body on Pearce’s grave. Pearce was in charge of the cases here in Evelyn, and the killer would have known that. He also knew the body would have been found quickly, which meant it was all for show, a big and personal “fuck you” to the world. Pearce’s fresh grave was turned into a crime scene. Off-limits to even his wife, who visited it every day, just so his soul could bless their unborn child and keep it safe.

  I drove like a bat out of hell to my newsstands to get the papers. These had a little more information than the TV reports, and more pictures. In one of the pictures of the crime-scene tape around Pearce’s grave, I saw Anthony Mannuzza taking his own picture off to the side. At that moment, I regretted ever taking a drink in the first place, but especially with him. The man was a prettyboy, but he was like a wraith, sneaking to and fro to take his goddamn pictures. I vowed I’d never touch the sauce again. I’d made a horrible mistake.

  I also learned another interesting tidbit: That same night, St. Mark’s Church had a window smashed in. Nothing seemed to be missing.

  Even the church break-in, if it was, in fact, related to the murders, seemed to be rushed. Usually a lock was busted, not a window.

  The Harbinger interviewed one of the feds, who said the same thing they always do: It’s only a matter of time now. This will be the last victim. Turn yourself in because it will be better for you. I wondered if anyone ever fell for it. I wouldn’t.

  In the distance I heard sirens screaming.

  The murder dominated the town. The police didn’t know what to do, and the people knew it. I could see it on the streets as I drove back home. The cops were rounding up the drunks, the hooligans, and the vagrants, shaking the trees out of desperation, hoping a miracle happened. It wouldn’t.

  When I got home, I knew I had some cleaning to do. Van Buren had been the sonofabitch that broke into my house. I would have preferred it to be an ordinary, run-of-the-mill psycho, because anything that cop could find would be called evidence for whatever he thought I was involved in. He knew I had a gun. He knew I read. He also knew I had articles about all the murders up on the wall. I had to get rid of all of it. The articles got burned in the fireplace, along with any miscellany I had floating around—bills, receipts, old fake IDs I’d been holding on to. I knew the police had some way to make traces of blood glow in the dark with certain lights and chemicals, but there was no possible way for me to do a job on the house that would throw off such an inspection. If the cops did come under Van Buren’s insistence that I was behind every unsolved crime since the end of the war, they would certainly find blood in my house, and that wasn’t a good thing.

  On the other hand, everything Van Buren had done thus far had been illegal. Not admissible. But would that matter if I was actually arrested for something? I’d still be behind bars for at least a little while.

  If only the wolf had revealed to me its memories from the night my friend died. For all I knew, the wolf knew exactly what had happened that night, but it was not being forthcoming. I was in the dark, and I had no idea what to do. All I knew was that it wasn’t over, no matter what Van Buren’s crazy note said. There were still some variables floating around to help me get to the bottom of all this.

  TWENTY-ONE

  In the morning I drove out to the Pearce house with a fresh bouquet of flowers. I’d never been inside the house before, but I knew where it was. I’d driven by it a thousand times, and always slowed down when I did, just to make sure no one was snooping around outside when Pearce was at work.

  The house was white, with dark blue shutters fastened to the frames of all the windows. A hedge encapsulated the house, and a weeping willow about twice as tall as the house overshadowed it from the left. I cleared my throat, then knocked on the door.

  No one came, so I tried the bell.

  I heard it echo inside the house, and then I heard footsteps come closer. Soon, the door opened, and there stood Martha, blue-purple bags under her puffy eyes, her hair matted, like she’d done nothing but sleep since the funeral. The sad fact that a dead body had been planted on her husband’s grave only made things worse.

  Down the block, two plainclothes policemen sat in an unmarked car watching the Pearce household. Some probably thought the planted body of Betsy Ratner was a warning to Pearce’s widow. I could only imagine the sizes of the bricks they shit when I went up to her front door.

  Martha wore a white, nappy robe, and slippers. Her belly came out so far, I could’ve reached out and touched it. “Mrs. Pearce,” I said.

  “Hello,” she said, a tinge of anger to her voice.

  “I, uh, just wanted to pay my respects. I got you these.”

  I handed her the flowers. She took them, smelled them quick, and then lowered them to her side. She hesitated, then said, “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” I said. “I was wondering if I could come in for a minute, talk with you for a minute.”

  “Now’s not a good time. I have people over, and …”

  “I hate to be a pain, Mrs. Pearce. I know you’re not my biggest fan, but I know you’re alone right now. Yours is the only car parked out there, and the house is silent. Now, I can understand it if you don’t want me in your home, but … hell, I’m trying to be really sincere here, ma’am, and, uh, I just need a minute of your time. Truly.”

  She cleared her throat, looked behind her, then out onto the street to make sure the cops were still there. “A minute,” she said. “No more.”

  “That’s fine.”

  She stepped aside and let me pass. I went into the living room and took a seat on the couch. The house was spacious and decorated with the intent of making the place look cozy. Big pillows all over the place, a huge kitchen. A big television. Everything made of oak. A true home. Up on the fireplace mantel was a picture of them at their wedding, a picture of her, and a picture of him, younger, in his dress uniform. I knew the other pictures were of their parents, because I remembered a memory of Pearce’s when they were decorating the place. I even knew what they kept in every drawer in the house. Mrs. Pearce came in and slowly lowered herself into a chair. She didn’t offer me anything to drink, nor did I expect her to. Danny and she usually kept at least a dozen different kinds of tea in the kitchen.

  “What do you need?” she asked.

  “I don’t need anything. I just wanted to talk a minute. I wanted to say that I’m sorry that you and I never got along well. Pearce was a great guy. I mean, that’s all they say on the TV, but for those of us who knew him, it really was true. He was too good a man to be a cop. And, uh, his partner, Van Buren, he’s kind of got a personal vendetta against me. I won’t get into it, but I’m wondering if he’s said anything to you about me … that kind of sounds like he suspects me of anything.”

  “How can you come into my home and ask me a question like

  this?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t want to upset you.”

  “I think you should leave.”

  “Please don’t say that.”

  “Get out.”

  “No, ma’am, this is important. More important than you know.”

  “I want you out.”

  She was crying now, and getting loud.

  “Mrs. Pearce, please.”

  “Out!”

  “No. I will not get out. For the baby’s sake, don’t get yourself worked up. I’ll be out of your hair in no time.” I didn’t ever expect to yell at a pregnant woman. “Now, listen, you and I never got on, but your husband and I did, and he was a damn good judge of character, and I think you ought to respect that right now and hear what I have to say, if for n
o other reason than he would have. Okay?”

  She got quiet.

  “Okay.”

  “This Van Buren guy is after me,” I said. “Has he talked to you about this?”

  “Yes.”

  “What has he said?”

  “He thinks you got Danny into something bad, and maybe that it got him killed …” She broke down. “I told him Danny wasn’t like that. Danny would never involve himself in anything illegal. The job was his life, but his partner wouldn’t listen to me. He thinks I’m hysterical.”

  “Why is he so concerned about Pearce’s reputation?”

  Mrs. Pearce said, “The blue line at work,” and left it at that.

  “On the night that the first girl died, do you know what Van Buren was doing, or where he was?”

  “No, but he did call that night. They always talked at night. They laughed for a few minutes, talked about work, and that was it. Same as always. Why?”

  “Don’t worry about the why of it. Uh, on the night that Danny died, do you know what he was doing up there at the Crowley property?”

  She didn’t answer for a long time.

  “He said if he was able to make this case, it would make his career, and … not only would he avenge all those poor girls, he’d do what the feds couldn’t do, maybe write a book about it. He said if he was able to catch this guy, we’d never have to worry about money for our little girl. He said we’d be set. And so he spent all these hours up at the scene, just … trying to put it all together in his head. He wanted this guy, Marlowe.”

  “And what about Van Buren?”

  “Van Buren,” she said hesitantly, “is not a good detective.

  But …”

  “But what?”

  “But I know what you’re thinking, and you shouldn’t be. He has problems.”

  “What kind?”

  “No one knows it, but he takes crazy pills. He’s a paranoid. I’m not supposed to know that, but I do.”

  She jerked forward for a second, then put her hands on her belly. That one crease appeared on her forehead.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” she said. “She just kicked.”

  I held my breath for a second, and watched her watch herself. I didn’t belong.

  “Do you want to feel?” she asked.

  For a brief moment, I wasn’t me anymore. I was Danny, seeing her through his eyes. His hands became my hands, and in this memory she was just a little bit lighter around the waist. He reached out to feel his baby.

  “Uh, is it safe?” I asked. Danny had said the same thing once.

  “Yes.”

  I got up and crossed the floor. I bent down and put one hand on her stomach, softly. She grabbed my wrist and pressed my hand more firmly against her. After a few seconds, I felt the baby shift inside her. It was as if the baby was able to recognize me by my aura, and I made it so unhappy with my presence that it tried to swim away. Maybe it knew that I killed its daddy. Or maybe it felt its daddy inside me.

  I looked at Martha, and Martha looked at me, and I began to cry. I backed away.

  “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Pearce. Thanks for having me.”

  I went for the door. I didn’t belong that close. She struggled to get up quickly.

  “Wait,” she said.

  I stopped. My insides were compelling me to get as far away from the unborn child as I could. I didn’t belong near children.

  “There’s something you should have. Hold on one minute, let me find it.”

  “Sure,” I said, and I waited there at the door.

  After disappearing somewhere in the house for a handful of minutes, she came back with a manila envelope that was sealed with duct tape. It had my initials on it, in marker. She handed it over.

  “Van Buren doesn’t know about this,” she said. “Danny told me a long time ago that if anything ever happened to him, I should make sure that you got this. It’s been changed to different envelopes, because he was always messing around with what was in there, and, uh, he even went so far as to put a piece of his hair there, on the edge of the tape, to make sure no one ever opened it. Do you know what it is?”

  “No,” I said.

  I’d never had a memory of Pearce’s regarding the envelope, but I could feel it hanging there like a thread on the edge of my brain. My heart went crazy in my chest. She looked at me, and that moment seemed to last ten thousand years.

  She never liked me. I always had to presume that it was because to most people, I was nothing but a common ruffian, a drunk, and she resented the fact that her man put a great deal of trust in a bum like me. Now he was dead, she was a widow, and she still didn’t know what the hell was going on.

  Her baby had no father. She was all alone in that house, and the world that had granted them so much had gone crazy, turned cold, and taken back all that it could. It wasn’t right, and it seemed that there was no one out there who could help her.

  Justice was dead. The law had proved to be useless in protecting her man, or the people of Evelyn. The power over life and death had been taken from the hands of the good and put into the hands of a very evil entity. No man had been able to stop him. No one had come close, and it was never going to stop. That only left one option open to put an end to this thing.

  Even if Van Buren wasn’t following me, he’d find out sooner or later that I’d paid a visit to Pearce’s wife, but she wouldn’t say anything about the envelope. I knew that much. I swallowed a lump in my throat.

  “Mrs. Pearce, it’s time for me to go. Thanks for having me. I know it seems this whole town has gone to hell, and I know that it seems like everything is hopeless, but I just want you to know that it’s not over.”

  I went home with the envelope. Once I was in my recliner with a cigarette burning, I opened it up with a pair of scissors. I pulled out over a dozen black-and-white photographs, each of which had a medical report stapled to the back.

  Each photo was of a crime scene, the oldest of which was three years old. The most recent photo showed a skull at the base of a tree. The report on the back said it was the remains of one

  Bill Parker.

  In flipping through the pictures, I found that all the bodies depicted belonged to all the people I’d killed in Evelyn over the years. All of them, except the ones they’d never found, but it was close enough. Detective Danny Pearce had me pegged.

  I closed my eyes, and there was Danny …

  He was looking in the bathroom mirror at the Pearce house.

  He was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a black sweatshirt with a hood. A pair of eyeglasses, though they weren’t prescription. An idiot’s disguise, like mine. He walked out of the bathroom and went to the kitchen, poured himself a Thermos full of coffee. Looked out the window to see a full moon. The clock on the microwave said it was nine o’clock.

  Martha padded in, not yet pregnant, and asked him where he was going dressed like that.

  “That’s top-secret,” Danny said jokingly, and then he gave her a kiss and went out to the car.

  He drove to my place and watched the house. A couple of hours later, he saw the wolf walk out the front door, hunching its shoulders as it did so, so it could fit, and then it sniffed the air and took off like a shot in the night.

  Pearce had had his suspicions because of my brilliant insights into the suspicious deaths of several people. He, unlike all the other rubes on the force, happened to realize that most of the town’s disappearances occurred on the night of the full moon. Maybe it was only natural to watch me, to see if the guy he’d taker under his wing was, in fact, a serial killer himself.

  What he saw shocked him so badly he pissed in his jeans. He hadn’t been so scared since he saw a bear attack someone when he was a boy. Not even the hostage situation at the jewelry store had scared him that bad. But now he knew. Now he knew why some people got mauled, why some people just simply vanished, why there were some nights I just didn’t feel like talking on the phone. Why I didn’t want anyone i
n the house. Why I’d never had a tattoo, even though I seemed like the type that would be covered with them—the tattoos would never grow back after the change. He never tried to put me down, and he never tried to stop me. Why? I closed my eyes and rummaged around in my brain to figure that out.

  Pearce, upon discovering my true nature, knew that no one would believe him. He knew that what I did, and how, were things that could not be explained by science or legitimately discussed in a court of law. Arresting me for being a supernatural killing machine would have been ridiculous. No one would have believed it, and if so, how would I be prosecuted? Further, the only evidence that I had been the one who had killed all these people would have been the microscopic flecks of blood in and around my house. Everything else would have been circumstantial. Any case against me wouldn’t have held up under close examination.

  After having thought about my dilemma in purely legal terms, Pearce began to contemplate this unique issue in another light. He was a man who had never approved of vigilantism because he was a man of law and order through and through, both because of his military service and his career as a cop. However, even he wasn’t immune to a certain duality of character. Knowing I could never be stopped, he didn’t so much see my continued freedom as a way for the town’s trash to be eradicated as it was a way to ensure the fact that the criminals his police force couldn’t catch wouldn’t be able to commit their particular crimes over and over again. That was how he rationalized allowing me to live.

  In his darker moments he admitted to himself that he was in a way living vicariously through me. After all, I was wholly capable of crossing those lines that he, as a police officer, had to steer clear of. He sometimes envied me for this, which, when his head would clear, disgusted him.