Kicking the kid in the ass, then pushing him pointedly down the alley, Tef grunted sounds. He pointed down the alley, grunted, kicked, pointed.
The kid finally got it.
He ran.
Raggedly, as if drunk, he bounced off the opposite stucco wall, leaving a bubbly red stain behind. Then he was off and running, arms and legs windmilling like useless chicken wings.
Probably felt the target on his back.
Tef laughed his hyena laugh. He stripped, handing Schwartz and Tannhauser his Kevlar and holsters. Then he shucked his boots and trousers.
Schwartz inhaled deeply and felt Tef’s Change. It was almost as if his senses exploded right along with Tef’s—scents burst into his nostrils and lanced into his brain. It was all he could do to keep from Changing.
The Change was always best when shared by the pack.
Tef now stood on four sturdy paws, his gray coat thick with health and vigor. A male in his prime.
Maybe next year he would challenge Alpha.
With a long, low growl, he was off at a lope. There was no hurry. Schwartz had intended to time the chase, play it like a game, but the beast Tef had become was already snapping at the running kid’s ankles, his fangs ripping flesh and tendon and muscle.
The terrified kid screamed and cartwheeled into a wall, missing an open doorway and ending up in a blood-splattered heap.
The wolf leaped onto his back, punched him into the ground with his paws, then lunged in and ripped out his throat with one mighty tear of his jaws. Blood flew in an artistic arc across the alley.
Then the wolf began to feed on the warm, bloody flesh.
Later, back in his clothes, Tef asked, “How long?”
Schwartz made it up. “Forty-three seconds. I’ll beat that tomorrow.”
Alpha laughed his gravelly chuckle. “Glad you guys are having fun.”
It had been fun.
The prey, always there and ready with arteries full of warm Iraqi blood. They had gorged themselves, grateful for the confusion of the war and its aftermath, the executions, the bombings, the suicide attacks, snipers. The disappearances that went unreported. The fearful citizenry behind closed doors, ignoring the growls and howling of the beasts that stalked their narrow streets.
Now, months later, Schwartz smiled as he recalled the hunts they held after that first one. They’d taken turns. By the time they’d rotated out and back to Wolfpaw’s Georgia headquarters, the three of them had conducted nearly a hundred arranged hunts. Not to mention those times they had used their advantage in unplanned engagements with their faceless, reckless enemy—an enemy not prepared to face creatures such as they could become, supernatural berserkers covered with fur, their jaws filled with fangs.
Baghdad had been fun.
“Hey, snap out of it,” Tannhauser said.
“Sure, Alpha, you got it.”
Schwartz waited for Alpha to turn away, then shook his head. It was a good thing the waiting was over, because they’d been close to biting off each other’s heads.
Eagle River my ass. This was Chickenshit River.
The guy who’d hired them was chickenshit, that was for sure. Mr. XYZ, he called himself. How original. Schwartz remembered a kids’ book he’d read in grade school with the protagonists playing at being aliens from the planet XYZ. That was what you named things when you had no imagination.
Well, Mr. XYZ paid well and their leave from Wolfpaw was going to turn out very lucrative indeed.
And fun. Never forget the fun.
Mr. XYZ
He pulled up behind the disabled silver SUV. He enjoyed being right, having figured she would drive back toward home. The two-lane highway had recently been repaved, but his implement had done its job within a couple miles.
He flicked on his flashers and waved when he saw her looking at him through his own windshield. He slid out and she recognized him, because their gazes had locked and he had sunk his anchor into her soul.
“Thank you so much for stopping!” she said, breathless. “I don’t know what happened. It just went flat all of a sudden. I was going to change it, but I couldn’t remember exactly how to do it, and—”
“Never fear, dear lady, I’m an expert at changing tires. I used to do it for a living, way back when I was a kid. Just lead me to your spare. Or do you have one of those mini-tire things?”
Her hair needed brushing, but it was lustrous and full. Her face was just a bit rounded, but her body was still college-age athletic. A former cheerleader, perhaps married early, or career driven in some insurance office.
“I think it’s a full-size spare,” she said, opening the rear hatch. “It’s one of the things I liked about this car when I bought it. I’m really grateful for your help. I’m due in the office in about an hour, and a tow truck would just take too long.”
He continued fantasizing about her as she opened the compartment and handed him her tool kit.
She chattered on, but he wasn’t listening anymore. His charm had worked. He was inside and trusted, and he now felt the power of his position hardening him down below, where it counted. He hoped she wouldn’t note the bulge in his trousers, the dead giveaway that he was not listening to her, but to his own scenario.
“I’ll be more than happy to pay for your time—”
Oh, you’ll pay, you’ll definitely pay.
When she turned away, he swiped the tire iron loosely across the back of her head and grabbed her as she sagged like a sack, to keep her from hitting the ground.
A quick look around. He was alone on the road.
He dragged her to his own SUV and tossed her into the back. If she woke, she’d find no handle on the inside. But there was a thin line of blood now lining the ugly purple bruise rising on the back of her skull, so he doubted she’d wake soon.
No, by then he would be standing before her in all his glory, and she would worship him like his mother had said they would. They all would. Then he would show her who had the power, and who didn’t.
He drove her foreign SUV into the ditch and into the underbrush, then headed back home in the most roundabout way he knew. He had time, but not that much, and he wanted to enjoy himself.
He smiled when he heard a low moan behind him. This would get him in the mood very quickly. He massaged himself below the steering wheel, hoping he could wait until everything was ready.
He whistled a little tune as he stroked himself and listened for her moans.
Mr. XYZ couldn’t help feeling pleased with himself right then.
Arnow
The service road was a slash through the once pristine woodland that snaked around the Eagle River and its chain of lakes. Actually it was only one of many service roads now wending their way through imposing forests of white and jack pines that had been reduced to tiny pockets of groves as development had begun to nibble at the edges.
Arnow drove his sheriff’s cruiser carefully through muddy pools from the previous night’s quick storm. He’d listened to it stomp its way through with a good book in his hand and a generous tot of B&B on the desk beside him. He was almost ashamed of how he’d lost his taste for scotch and gained an affinity for what was, really, a liqueur—but a sweet, deceptively strong, and hearty one at that, made by the Benedictine monks in one of the most altruistic pursuits known to man. There was not much better in his book than a night like that, a quiet night in which his police radio or cell didn’t interrupt. The spring storm was icing on his cake.
But now the aftermath of the storm left a bad taste in his mouth that no amount of mints could remove. He sucked on three Tic-Tacs and hoped for the best. He already thought he could smell death in the air. Maybe it was the undergrowth, maybe the rotting tree trunks that lined the road, deadfall from earlier storms. Who knew? He was still getting used to all the woodcraft people expected him to know.
He pulled up to where Jerry’s cruiser was still parked, its strobe light bar rotating uselessly. Exposed dirt and mud all around, with here and there p
atches of gravel, marked the parking area of the huge construction site. The new casino would be a monster, that was for sure. Arnow always cringed when he figured how much larger the department would have to be, even though the tribal police would have priority jurisdiction. Some places, his sheriff’s office would have had no jurisdiction at all, but here some arcane language in the city and county charters gave the sheriff and tribal police force, such as it was, joint jurisdiction. Arnow chuckled mirthlessly—they’d be increasing the size of their department, too. The difference was they would have all the money they needed, thanks to an uninterrupted income stream from the casino and its ancillary hotel and convention center. A tribal police mini-SUV was parked at a skewed angle nearby, no lights.
At first, Arnow couldn’t spot anyone.
Where the hell was the crime scene?
He approached the hole in the ground that currently passed for a casino location and looked down. No one there. No laborers, no labor being done. That was good. He squinted, looking around for a clue as to where the victim might have been found. He noticed the silver BMW convertible in the lot, parked well away from workers’ F-150 and Ram pickups. The car looked familiar.
Following the perimeter of the foundation depression, he saw that the service road continued past the parking lot.
There. He heard voices, caught flashes of color between the bare, thinned-out tree trunks in the way as the road angled through the woods.
Didn’t look as if Dr. Jessie had arrived yet. Her older Pathfinder was nowhere in sight. He felt a slight disappointment. How pathetic was that, glad of the crime so he could flirt? He figured that feeling wouldn’t last.
Well, no point delaying. He was about to take ownership of the crime scene. His first murder here. He wondered how it would change things.
As it turned out, it would change things a lot.
The two tribal cops had wrapped some yellow tape around a rather large swath of road, using tree trunks as posts.
He knew them both, having met them shortly after he’d been hired. The unfortunately named John Deer was tall and muscular, while Bill Rogers was shorter and rounder but not fat. He’d only seen them smiling before, but both looked grim now.
“Sheriff,” Deer said, “glad you made it out here before any media types.”
Arnow nodded at them. “Are there media types nearby?”
“Oh yeah, and they have scanners.”
Arnow made a clucking sound. “I’ve got Doc Jessie on her way. Where’s the body?”
“Here.” Deer pointed. “And here. And here.”
“And there,” added Rogers, “and there.”
“Jesus Christ!” Arnow said.
“Don’t go over there. We barfed up our breakfasts already. It’s bad.”
Arnow felt the tickle in his throat. He had seen plenty, but there was still a knee-jellying effect whenever you saw a mangled human body. He forced himself to look down and focus, and mangled was not the right word.
This body—or bodies, it was hard to tell—was ripped apart, torn to pieces. Literally. He could see an arm poking out of the underbrush over there. A foot lying in the mud here.
Christ, there was the head, like a deflated football.
He felt his gorge rise, and it was all he could do to swallow hard and keep from spewing up the bottom of his guts.
Then he bent lower and saw something else.
The body had been ripped apart by teeth. He could clearly see the marks, and the torn look of the lardlike flesh was unmistakable.
“Do you know, uh, him?”
Deer responded. He was done stringing yellow tape and just stood back, swaying. “Jimmy Blackthorn.”
“Casino guy, right? Investment guru?”
They nodded.
“That his BMW back there?”
“Yup.”
Arnow grunted.
This would have some strange repercussions. Blackthorn was a sort of defrocked Indian. That’s what somebody at the newspaper had said about him. He’d “gone over to the white man’s world,” or something like that. He was bringing the investors in, helping the tribe finance the project for a cut, probably a big one. He was hated by whites, disliked by many Indians, and yet he had his hands all over the pie.
Not anymore.
Arnow spit to avoid puking. He still hadn’t settled his stomach, dammit. He pulled on latex gloves just to do something. He wasn’t going to touch anything.
And now here was the doc.
Jessie Hawkins came into view where the road turned into the taped-off area.
For a moment, Arnow forgot all about the crime scene. She brought an aura with her that seemed to brighten everyone in its light. Damn, she looked good.
She paled, however, as soon as she caught a glimpse of one of the taped-off sections of ground.
He thought he heard her say “Fuck!” before turning away for a couple minutes. He gave her time—even doctors didn’t always realize how rough violence could look. And this, this was the worst he’d ever seen, bar none.
Well, there had been some close ones. But no, this was worse.
“You okay, Doc?” Arnow had always been a little folksy, but here in this area he played it up. Not quite Andy Griffith, but it didn’t hurt for people to think you were a rube sometimes.
“Uh, yeah.” She cleared her throat. “Just caught me by surprise. It’s not an everyday—”
“No, thank God.”
“He was torn apart, wasn’t he?” She was looking again now, swallowing carefully. Her eyes didn’t miss much, though.
“To pieces.” Arnow started to introduce the rez cops, then stopped when they almost broke out laughing.
“Dr. Hawkins almost lives in the clinic, Sheriff,” Deer said. “We know her.” There were tight smiles all around.
Jessie had pulled on her own latex and was now squatting, examining this portion of the body.
“These are teeth marks!” she said, surprised.
And something else, maybe?
He noticed her eyes seemed hooded, avoiding his.
Hiding something? Almost expecting it?
“My thought, too.”
She nodded.
“Where’s the rest—? Oh, I see.”
She stood and moved on to another taped-off area. A few minutes later, she tracked down the others. Meanwhile, Arnow and the two cops had made a careful search of the general area. He was impressed to see they had followed protocol and wore gloves, too. So now the only clues they had were items that seemed to belong to the dead man. Cell phone, leather jacket. Wallet. Jimmy Blackthorn. His ID was intact, and so was his money—in fact, his wallet had been mauled, but left behind full of cash and cards.
“There should be footprints, with all this mud,” he said, seeing Jessie looking at the scuffing.
“I’m guessing the murder took place before the heavy rain, when this was mostly dust and dirt.”
“Too bad.” She still seemed to be looking for print marks. There were some animal tracks nearby.
She spent a few minutes at each major portion of the victim, checking the ground around them.
“Recognize him?” Arnow asked when she had located the head.
She nodded, after turning pale again.
A sawn-off, torn-off human head is not an easy sight. She was trying to keep from heaving, and he was impressed with her control.
“Jimmy Blackthorn. Everyone knows who he is. Was. This’ll put a damper on the project,” she said sarcastically as she waved her hand at the site. “But they’ll find a way to go on.”
“You don’t approve?” This piqued his curiosity.
“I was with the Waters dissenters. The tribe has so many problems already. And now they’ll have to learn a slew of new things and new businesses—before they actually attempt to resolve their older issues. I don’t believe the benefits of a casino will help them in the short run, no.”
“And the long run?”
She smiled. “There are plenty of
whites lining up to lose their Social Security money all over the state. I suppose in the long run the casino will manage to soak its share of them. But it’ll bring in a lot of outsiders, like Blackthorn here. He was raised in a rez orphanage, but not in this state.”
“You didn’t trust him?”
“I only met him once. Struck me as a fast talker and a little sleazy, but he brought in the money. My friend Sam Waters, who’s on the elders’ council, didn’t trust him, hence his opposition to the entire project.”
“Didn’t like it enough to try to stop it by killing?” Arnow realized as soon as he said it that it was the big city talking.
“What? You think old Sam Waters came out here during the storm and tore Blackthorn to pieces because he didn’t trust him? Come on! Be serious.”
“Be that as it may…” Arnow hated to cede any ground. “I’ll call Eagleson and tell the Council before they hear it on the news.” He pointed at the rez cops. “Looks like we got us a joint investigation.”
She nodded, but she seemed to have stepped out for a minute mentally. Her thoughts were not transparent, but the wheels churning in her head were almost obvious.
“Done here, Doc?” The morgue attendants he’d called in from Antigo had just arrived on the scene. He took some pleasure when both heaved their cookies into the mud.
“Wait a while, guys,” he said as they wiped their chins. “I’ve got a deputy coming with a camera. I’ll let you know when.”
They retreated thankfully, their eyes still crossed.
Jessie Hawkins continued to walk around the crime scenes. His cop’s itch, as he called it, said she was keeping some thoughts to herself. Well, that was her right.
“Sheriff, I’ll have to defer on the autopsy.”
“Tom,” he said.
“Sorry, Tom. I’ve never dealt with remains in this kind of condition. And I don’t have the facilities. I think you’ll get a better result with a full-timer. I’d be glad to assist, though.”
Wolf's Gambit Page 4
