The Frenzy Way

by Gregory Lamberson

  Scanning the dumbfounded expressions of the murder police, Mace said, “Questions?”

  Dana Weeds, detective second grade, who was bucking for first grade before retirement, raised his hand. His hair matched his dirty white shirt. Mace found him fat, lazy, and cynical, a veteran who had been on the force too long.

  “Yeah, do we have to listen to this bullshit, Tony?”

  Mace refrained from sighing. He didn’t mind when his detectivesused his first name in private conversations, but he found it disrespectful in the context of a squad meeting.

  Patty crossed her arms. “You have to listen if you’re going to help on the case, Weeds. The perp left that term on a wall of vic number two’s apartment. We need to know what’s going through his head.”

  Weeds rolled his eyes. “This is some kind of elaborate hoax.”

  “Sure, the fairy-tale aspects are. But an old man and a young woman were literally torn to pieces in our jurisdiction. In each case, the vic’s head was nowhere to be found. That sound like a hoax to you? View the crime scene video.”

  Weeds looked down at his desk like a scolded schoolchild, his jaw tightening.

  Mace said, “Willy, run down Sarah Harper’s stats.”

  Willy opened a folder and read from its contents. “‘Sarah Bridget Harper, age twenty-one. Grew up in Hartford, Connecticut. Third year at NYU—art history major. She took Glenzer’s class as an elective. No steady boyfriend. Survived by her parents and two sisters.”’

  “The other thing linking these murders,” Mace said, “is that each one occurred at night during a full moon. Tonight is the third and final full moon of this cycle. If our perp strikes again—and we have no reason to believe he won’t—he just might disappear for a whole month, like Rodrigo Gomez did. To prevent that from happening, we need to know if there’s a stronger connection between Glenzer and Harper.”

  Patty said, “I want the teams who interviewed Glenzer’s students from this semester to re-interview those same students today. Get their take on Sarah.”

  Groans filled the room.

  Mace said, “The coroner will be working on both victims all week, so don’t expect any helpful tips from them immediately. Landry, we’ve got two werewolf references now. I want you to put together a glossary in case we get another message.”

  Landry noted Mace’s directive.

  Patty eyed the men. “Share nothing—and I mean nothing—with the press, or your ass will be mine.”

  Muted chortles.

  An edge crept into Mace’s voice. “If I learn of anyone in this squad leaking information, I’ll have their shield. Don’t doubt it for one minute.”

  Patty said, “You’re bound to encounter citizens who are understandably curious about our perp’s fascination with supernatural monsters. Don’t feed that curiosity. Don’t even joke to each other that we’re regarding these messages as anything other than an attempt to create an atmosphere of fear.” She gave each detective a hard look. “Your assignments are posted. Willy and I will be in the field too. Stay in touch with me no matter how insignificant a detail may seem.”

  “Good hunting,” Mace said.

  Inside Mace’s office, with the door closed, Stokes said, “Am I to understand Detective Lane is the primary on this investigation?”

  “That’s right,” Mace said.

  “And why is that?”

  “Because she answered the call.”

  “You’re her superior, right? You can take the case from her.”

  Mace grunted. “It’s not my job to work cases.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You’re an administrator now, aren’t you?”

  Just like the old days, Mace thought. As a TV reporter for Channel 4 and one of Cheryl’s competitors, Stokes had hounded Mace during the Full Moon Killer case and had benefited from Mace’s ultimate success, parlaying his reporting on Gomez’s murders into his current NYPD position. “I like to think I’m still in the thick of things, but my job is supervising detectives, not working cases.”

  Stokes’s features intensified. “My phone hasn’t stopped ringing in the last twenty-four hours. This morning I go before my brothersand sisters from the press corps and tell them there’s a maniac running around this city who believes he’s a werewolf. He tears his victims to pieces and runs off with their heads. You don’t think that’s going to start a panic? No matter how I downplay these gruesome details, they’re what any sensible reporter is going to glom onto. I need to convince the press—so they can convince the public—that we’ve got this situation under control. I can’t do that with Detective Lane. I can’t sell a rookie Murder Police. But I can sell you, Mace. You brought in Gomez. You’re a bona fide hero. Because of that damned book, you’re famous.”

  Certain that Stokes had a similar book in him just waiting to get out, Mace ignored the remark. “I’m a captain. I supervise detectives. I don’t work cases.”

  “Then give this to someone else. Someone with a little experience and some cojones between their legs.”

  Mace stepped closer. “That’s what’s bothering you, isn’t it? You don’t care that Lane is green. You care that she’s female.”

  “It does present a certain image problem. The press is made up of children. I know this because I used to play in their sandbox. And on a big murder case like this, they need to see that Daddy is in charge, not Mommy.”

  “Lane stays in charge, Diega assists her, and I back her. End of story. Public Affairs doesn’t dictate how I run my unit.”

  “Greaaaaat.” Stokes raised both arms in a gesture of futility. “If this backfires, we’ll both be missing heads.” Turning on one heel, he left the office.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “The Indian’s nature can no more be trusted than the wolf’s. Tame him, cultivate him, strive to Christianize him, as you will, and the sight of blood will in an instant call out the savage, wolfish, devilish instincts of the race.”

  —1862 petition to President Abraham Lincoln by citizens of St. Paul, Minnesota

  John Stalk drove his black Jeep Wrangler Golden Eagle over the bumpy dirt road to the tribal police station located on the Chautauqua Reservation, part of the Seneca Indian Nation of New York’s Iroquois Confederacy. The reservation stretched from Lake Erie to Canada Way Creek and had a population of 2,412, living mostly in single-family homes. Several businesses operated within its borders, including a tobacco shop, a grocery store, a bookstore, hunting supply store, and a bingo parlor.

  Stalk had served as a member of the tribal police force for over a year. He worked part-time, which allowed him to study with Tom Lenape, a self-proclaimed shaman. Pulling into the flat brick building’s parking lot, he switched off the engine but continued to listen to his CD: Billy Childish, a poet, author, and musician who chronicled the downfall and plight of the American Indian. He listened to Billy whenever he grew tired of U2 and Alicia Keys.

  As a boy he had visited the reservation with his father but had never dreamed he would one day live there. “Chief” Dan had been the head of the very tribal police force on which Stalk now served, until he had met Sylvia Lyons, a Caucasian teacher who performed volunteer work for the reservation’s children. Dan and Sylvia married one year later, and Dan left the poverty-stricken reservation for what he hoped would be a more prosperous life in Niagara County. When the Niagara Falls Police Academy rejected his employment application outright, without explanation and despite his experience, he turned to welding at a local factory to support Sylvia and their unborn first child.

  Stalk grew up the youngest of three siblings and had been Dan’s only offspring to show interest in his Indian heritage. He’d enjoyed accompanying his father on day trips to the reservation and on weekend excursions to the family retreat in the Adirondacks, where they hunted and fished together. Dan taught his son to respect nature and wildlife and entertained him with tales of tribal police work. After graduating from high school, Stalk had enlisted in the marines. He found himself assigned to the Middle
East, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq. While he battled poorly defined enemies, his mother lost her own fight with lung cancer. By the time of Stalk’s discharge, his brother and sister had moved away to a warmer climate with a stronger economy. Stalk elected to remain with his father; someone had to look after the old man.

  He had been shocked by Dan’s appearance: his father had grown frail and despondent since Sylvia’s funeral and kept her ashes in an urn on the mantel. Dan’s spirits only lifted when Stalk received his acceptance letter from the Niagara Falls Police Academy. At first pleased that his father felt vindicated, Stalk soon discovered he disliked policework. Drug activity near the Canadian border scarred the economically challenged city, and political corruption and organized crime ran rampant. When a good old boy on the force called him “Chief” in a derogatory tone, Stalk had nearly broken the man’s arm with a move he had learned in the corps. He earned the respect of his colleagues over time but remained a loner, his father his only confidant.

  When Dan’s health worsened, Stalk took a three-month leave of absence, the maximum allowed by the department, to care for the old man. They planned a trip to the mountainside cabin, but Dan died before they could make it. Stalk obtained permission from the tribal council to bury his parents’ ashes on the Chautauqua Reservation. His brother and sister did not attend the ceremony. Stalk put the house on the market to appease them, but Dan had willed the cabin to him alone. And so he had traveled to it, intending to spend the remainder of his leave there to decide whether he wished to remain on the force. On that first night back in the cabin, a wolf’s howl changed his life forever.

  Stalk entered the police station with a mild sense of pride. On his childhood visits, the tribal police had worked out of a single room in the Tribal Operations building, which also housed a fire department. Now each agency had its own modern building. The police department included training facilities, a gym, and three detention cells. He wore a uniform shirt open at the collar with a tribal patch on one sleeve and blue jeans pulled over motorcycle boots. Marion Morningstar, a chunky woman with a bright smile, sat at the reception desk. She wore an identical shirt, her hair in long braids.

  “Good morning, Morningstar,” he said as he did whenever they worked together.

  “Good morning, Cornstalk.”

  “Ouch.”

  She offered a wide smile, and he entered the squad room.

  Tribal Police Chief Roy Diondega sat with his shoes on his desk. He wore a full uniform, with a string tie, and a different colored cowboy hat each day of the week. Today he wore a black hat with silver trim. Mason Kilidee, his right-hand man, stood beside him. They stared at the TV mounted in an upper corner.

  “What’s going on?” Stalk said.

  “They got skinwalkers in New York City,” Diondega said.

  Stalk’s spine tensed up. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll see after the commercials. What are you doing in so early?”

  Still unnerved, Stalk tossed a manila envelope onto Diondega’s desk. “Here you go: proof that Gaskosada is illegally dumping waste from his casino on the reservation.”

  Diondega and Kilidee exchanged looks; then Diondega’s eyes settled on the envelope. “Proof, huh?”

  “That’s right.”

  Stanley Gaskosada owned a new casino just outside the reservation’s border. He employed half the adult population of the reservation but at dirt-cheap wages. Stalk had discovered more than one mountain of garbage that included casino napkins, but Diondega had been reluctant to press the matter, leading Stalk to suspect bribery. Cheaper to buy a police chief than to hire a cartage firm, Stalk figured.

  “Gaskosada’s a powerful man,” Kilidee said. “Why do you want to stir this up?”

  “Because he’s shitting on our land,” Stalk said in an even tone.

  “It’s his land more than it’s yours.”

  “Then he’s shitting on his land—illegally.”

  Kilidee’s voice rose. “You know how many people have food on their tables because of …”

  Stalk eyed his colleague’s belly. “I see you’re not starving.”

  Diondega raised one hand. “Shhh. The news is back on. I’ll talk to Gaskosada, John.”

  A newswoman appeared on the screen, standing before a brick building—much larger than the tribal police station, Stalk guessed—with NYPD officers loitering behind her. As she spoke to the camera, she brushed aside strands of blonde hair the wind blew in her face. The name Carol Sporada flashed beneath her.

  “Jim, I’m standing outside One Police Plaza in Lower Manhattan. Just minutes ago, Carl Stokes, the Commissioner of Public Information, confirmed that last night’s brutal murder of NYU student Sarah Harper bore striking similarities to the murder of her professor Terrence Glenzer the previous night.” The image shifted to a Caucasian police official standing at a podium, speaking to reporters as cameras flashed. “Stokes confirmed that Harper had been dismembered, her assailant escaped through a second-story window, and the word—let me make sure I get this right—nahual was written on one wall of the victim’s apartment in what appears to be human blood.” Carol’s image replaced that of the press conference. “Nahual is a Mexican word meaning ‘shape-shifter’ or ‘were-creature.’ You’ll remember that the word skinwalker, a Native American term for ‘werewolf,’ was written on Terrence Glenzer’s apartment wall, also in blood.”

  Skinwalker, Stalk thought. Nahual. Werewolf. His stomach tightened as a closer image of Carl Stokes filled the screen.

  “What we have here is a very sick, twisted, and powerful individual,” Stokes said, “not some kind of blood cult. We’re following several leads and expect to have a suspect in custody soon.” Carol came on screen again. “The grisly messages recall the Tate-LaBianca murders committed by the followers of Charles Manson in California in 1969. In that notorious case, Manson Family members wrote the phrases ‘Helter Skelter’ and ‘Political Piggy’ on refrigerator doors with the blood of their victims.”

  “They got nahuals in New York City too,” Diondega said.

  “It’s a big city,” Kilidee said. “A real melting pot.”

  Stalk sped to Tom Lenape’s cabin near the reservation border. He knew of Stanley Gaskosada’s illegal activities because he had witnessed a truck dump the garbage from Tom’s place. But he no longer cared about Gaskosado or whether Diondega was on his payroll.

  Skinwalker. Nahual. Werewolf.

  Only one shaman lived on the Chautauqua Reservation: Tom Lenape. The old man had known Chief Dan when Dan lived there. Stalk had sought him out, and they became fast friends. Because of Stalk’s experiences in the Adirondacks and New York City, he wanted to learn everything Tom knew about the spirit world. Twice a week the shaman tutored him on such Indian rituals as the Frenzy Way. Tom was the equivalent of a Unitarian preacher: he studied the religions and mythologies of all the Great Indian Nations.

  As the cabin came into view, Stalk saw Tom standing on a stepladder, applying a coat of weather protection to the log face of his cabin with a wide paintbrush. The old man wore jeans and a sweater, and a Marlboro dangled from his lips.

  Stalk felt a sudden rush of emotion; he had come to love the shaman as a second father. Under Tom’s tutelage, he had undergone the rites of Saren Antunia, the vision quest of the Lakota culture. Stalk had fasted, then wandered into the woods until he found a spot that resonated within him. Stripped naked, he sat in a circle ten feet in diameter and prayed to the spirit Wakan Tanka for guidance. He remained there for four days, drinking water but eating nothing, ingesting entheogens that caused him to hallucinate. The journey had purified and renewed his soul.

  Tom turned at the familiar sound of the Wrangler. He had never seen Stalk drive so recklessly before. Descending the stepladder, he puffed on his cigarette and watched Stalk hop from his vehicle and hurry to the cabin.

  “What’s wrong?” Tom said.

  “Have you seen the news?” Stalk sounded winded.

 
Tom shook his head.

  “I need your help.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Mace worked his way through the previous night’s arrest reports, reviewing and signing each one. A knock on his door caused him to look up at Karen Diaz, a civilian typist who worked in the bull pen.

  Making eye contact with him, Karen opened the door. “There’s a priest here who wants to speak to whoever’s in charge of the Glenzer homicide. Detective Lane’s in the field.”

  Mace stood. “Send him in.”

  A moment later Karen escorted a priest into the office.

  “I’m Captain Mace.”

  The two men shook hands as the typist closed the door.

  “Father Francis Hagen.”

  Mace motioned to the metal-framed chair before his desk. “Please have a seat.”

  “Thank you.” Father Hagen made himself comfortable on the worn cushion.

  “How can I help you?”

  “As I explained to the young woman, I wish to speak to the detective in charge of Terrence Glenzer’s murder.”

  “That would be Detective Lane, but she’s doing fieldwork. I’m her supervisor. Will I do?”

  Father Hagen gestured with one hand in a courteous manner. “Perhaps. Are you Catholic?”

  Mace offered the man a gentle smile. “Once upon a time but no longer. My wife practices, though. Is that close enough?”

  Father Hagen returned the smile. “It makes no difference; I was merely curious. I’m also curious about medieval history. Fascinated, you might say. Mr. Glenzer contacted me regarding a certain artifact he had come to possess. I expressed interest in obtaining this artifact and set about negotiating a price for it. Mr. Glenzer declined to accept a fee and agreed to turn the artifact over to me. Unfortunately, Mr. Glenzer was murdered before the transfer of ownership could take place, which puts me in an awkward position.”