I took extra care with my appearance just in case I needed it. Mindy had gone through high school as a very conflicted girl. Then, our senior year, she had met a foreign exchange student from Japan named Cin and the confliction had flown the coop to be replaced by first infatuation. Cin had gone home after the school year, but by then Mindy had experienced life out of the closet and wasn't about to go back in. I was hoping she was in a relationship because I wasn't sure how successful I'd be if I had to actually flirt with a girl.
As I walked up to the office door, I saw the maid coming that way with her cart. She was about my size, which is to say small, with dark auburn hair and startling green eyes that tilted up at the corners. I held the door open and got a big smile as she pushed the cleaning cart past me.
"Cin?" I asked, startled.
If possible, the grin just got bigger. "Is me. Taz, right? I remember from school." Cin's English was very good and proper, but she had the habit of leaving out a word here and there. It's not as annoying as you'd think. Actually, when she did it with her little Asian accent, it even managed to be cute.
Her grin was contagious. "How long have you been back?"
Mindy came around the corner and answered for her. "She got here the end of last month. Isn't that great? We've kept up by writing over the years and she wanted to surprise me for my birthday."
"Yes. And we had such fun with birthday, I decided to make Spencer my home. Lucky for me, I have special friend here."
"Lucky for both of us you mean, " Mindy said.
"I'm so happy for you two. I'm still looking for my special friend, though I do have a likely candidate or two."
"Oh, you've got to give us all the gooey details. How about you come over for dinner sometime and the three of us catch up? You can even bring Mr. Maybe Right, if he doesn't mind being outnumbered."
"I've got a lot going on right now, but maybe in a week or two? I'd love to hear all about what's been going on with you guys." I was a little surprised to realize I was telling the whole truth. Maybe my lack of friends to date had been all on my end.
"Okay, but we'll hold you to it. Here, let me give you our home number." My contact list went up to six as we exchanged numbers.
Now to the point of my visit. "I have a huge favor to ask you guys. I'm helping a writer friend of mine do some research for a travel guide she's writing. She's gathering information about who comes to stay in Spencer, where they come from, and why they choose Spencer. I was hoping to see your registration book and maybe any reservations you have for the next week or so?"
Mindy was already reaching for the book. "Not a problem. Hey, a travel guide for Spencer, or maybe even all of Owen County, would be great for business. Not many people know this, but I own this place now. I bought it last year when the owners wanted to retire to a warmer climate. We kept it on the quiet because the owners were so well liked around here. Everyone just assumes I'm running it for them. Win-win situation."
Great, now I had to talk Rose into really writing a travel guide.
With a list of five current guests and two reservations, I headed off to the Park Inn. Amazingly, the travel guide ruse seemed to be opening doors all over the place. The reservations clerk was more than happy to help me. For privacy, he couldn't give me street addresses or phone numbers, but I left there with a full guest list and all the reservations for the next two weeks. He also asked to be told when the guide was completed so that he could order a supply for the gift shop at the Inn. Wow, this thing was selling like hotcakes and it was just a figment of my imagination.
I doubled back home to change clothes and grab a bite to eat. While I munched, I glanced at my calendar. At least the full moon cycle was through for the month, so maybe we would have time to trace the killer were by other methods. There had to be a way.
Of course, there was also a good chance the were would be similar to the Benandanti and not bound by the moon's cycle. If so, all bets were off as to the frequency of possible attacks. Hopefully, Rose would have some luck with the Foundation, another of the duties she had claimed. Maybe they could shed some light as to just what we were dealing with.
Rose was really helping me out with this. Especially as it sounded like the Luparii specialized in wolf hunts, and I knew they weren't wolves. Something had been bothering me all morning and I finally put my finger on it. Hadn't the coyote called Rose 'Cuz? Coyotes are close enough to wolves that she wouldn't hide that from me. So how could she be related to the coyote?
Were they godlings, then? Did that mean they could be mythical creatures too, like the Trickster?
I DECIDED TO SKIP NUMBER two on my list and go straight to three. After all, the news had been blasting all day about the fatal wolf attack, so the woods would be teeming with wannabe heroes and wolf-hunters. Not a safe environment for anyone wolf-related.
Most of the workers at the fabrication mill left at four, but there were a couple of people left loading a truck of completed pieces when we got there. Russell Paine, the sometimes night man, was there too. Russell was a down's syndrome man. He could only handle simple tasks but was as loyal as they come. He would come by two or three times a week to clean the bathrooms and break rooms and dust and sweep the offices. Since he walked to and from his house, he was dressed in big coveralls for warmth. And since he was Russell, and liked bright colors, they were his usual red. Had he not been a tall thinner man with bright red hair and freckles, he might have been mistaken for Santa.
He saw us and shuffled over with a big smile. No shifty looks at Rebel being a wolf. Not a single doubt he was greeting friends.
Rebel ran to meet him, presenting his head for a good ear scratch. Russell and Reb were good buddies. Reb didn't mind if a fellow was slow to learn and talked with a stutter. And Russell was great at head rubs and back scratches. Made me jealous just to watch them. I wanted a back scratch, too, dang it.
As I worked away at the statue, bringing the stone wolf to life, I heard the truck and then the other workers leave. Neither of the other men came in to say goodbye, or for that matter had even acknowledged our presence, other than shooting Reb worried looks. The sooner that wolf-not-wolf was dealt with the better. I was tired of Reb's good nature being questioned.
When Russell had finished his clean up, he came over carrying a stool. "D-do you m-mind if'n I sit a s-spell with you? I'll b-be real q-quiet." He crossed his heart like he was making an oath.
I smiled at him and Reb's tongue lolled out in anticipation of another rub. The glutton. "Have a seat for as long as you like, Russell. If you like I can give you a ride home when we're done for the night."
Russell frowned, thinking. "M-mom always says not to r-ride with strangers." Then his face brightened like the sun coming out from the clouds. "But you're f-friends to Russell, r-right? N-not s-strangers."
"That's right, Russell. We are friends. Not strangers. I'll even call your mom and ask her if it's okay before we leave."
He nodded happily, then settled in to watch the magic of stone come to life. It really does seem like magic to me, even now. Even when I'm the one creating it. With each stroke of hammer and chisel, each swipe with the rasp, life breathed into the creation. It might not be quite the miracle of birth, but to me, it was pretty darn close.
After putting in a few good hours of work and packing up my tools, I called Russell's mom and got the okay to give him a ride. She had met both me and Reb before and knew we were friends with her son, so both he and Reb piled in the back, leaving me to sit up front like a chauffeur.
When we pulled up to his house, a little more than a mile away, Mrs. Paine was waiting out on the porch for us. "I really appreciate you bringing my boy home, it being after dark and all," she said. "It worries me him walking these roads after dark with all them wolves and coyotes about making trouble and killin' folk. Too bad not all wolves are like your Reb there." She smiled at Reb through the window as Russell got out to join his mother. Then they stood on the porch and waved to us as we backed
down their drive and out onto the road.
As it turns out, Mrs. Paine was right to worry.
Chapter 14
The next day I tried a new tactic. I figured if I was up at dawn, I could beat the Trickster to the punch. Turns out I was mistaken, but no one could say I hadn't tried.
My shower done and breakfast eaten, I checked my phone to be sure Coyote hadn't turned it off again. He hadn't. The thing went off in my hand at full blast singing an oldie about not shooting the Sheriff. A second later it landed on my bed, and I was scrambling for it amidst rumpled bed covers and yesterday's clothes.
I found it on the third—ring, I guess you would call it—and answered with a breathless, "Yeah?"
There was a brief silence from the other end of the phone before Dunwood asked, "Taz?"
Trying to get my breathing under control, I nodded at the phone. "Sorry, Sheriff," I wheezed. "The phone startled me and I had to run for it." In point of fact, nothing but the truth.
"If I caught you at a bad time, I can call back."
"No, now is fine. Honest." I paused, gathering my courage. "There hasn't been another attack has there?"
"Nothing like that, thank God. Actually, I'm off today and was wondering if you'd be up for a short visit?" he ended on a questioning note.
"Sure, Sheriff, when will you be here?" The words were no sooner out of my mouth than I heard a vehicle coming up my drive. I glanced out the window over the sink to see Dunwood's Explorer pulling to a stop by the Jeep.
He must have seen me at the window because he didn't bother to answer. He just smiled and waved as he disconnected the call and climbed out.
I opened the door with a grin. "Guess that would be now, huh?"
He grinned back. "Yup."
I stepped to one side to let him in and he handed me a large brown envelope as he passed me.
"What's this?"
He settled in at my tiny kitchen table and pulled a pen out of his pocket. "It's a lifetime gun permit application." His steel gray eyes met mine as I sat down across from him. "I don't suppose you realized that your permit to carry expired two months ago?"
I swallowed. Crap. "It did?" My brain was already crunching numbers, trying to come up with a way to pay for a new permit. The regular ones were pricey enough, I wasn't at all sure I could come up with enough money for a lifetime one.
"Yup," he answered. "And I figured that as much as you and Reb have helped out the department in the past, this is the least we could do for you in return. The application fee will be taken care of by the Sheriff's office, but you still need to complete the app and sign it."
We both knew it would be him paying the fee and not the department. I swallowed around the lump in my throat as I started filling in the paperwork.
"By the way," Dunwood said, "I had a talk with those friends of Jimmy's that went on that hunt with him. Two brothers, actually."
I paused my writing and looked up at him warily. "What did they have to say?" Please creator, nothing about a supernaturally enhanced coyote.
He shook his head. "Some friends they turned out to be. Come to find out they set it up to give Jimmy a fright. Child's prank, actually, but with Jimmy's heart..."
"Let me guess, they gave him a fright alright and when Jimmy's attack hit, they freaked out and ran?"
"Got it in one," Dunwood said. "The next morning, they started feeling guilty and went back out to try to find him, but he wasn't anywhere around where they left him. They swear they were at the other end of the park from where he was found."
"Think they're telling the truth?"
He sighed. "As much as I'd like to wrap this case up, I actually believe them. I don't think they're the ones that buried him. I can believe they left him, yeah, but they admitted to that. So we still aren't any closer to solving the mystery."
"Well, at least you have one piece to the puzzle," I said.
He nodded, quiet, and I bent back down to finish the paperwork. Once I'd signed on the dotted line, Dunwood took out a small ink pad and got my prints.
I was at the sink, scrubbing off the ink when I heard him make a half-strangled coughing sound. Whirling around, I saw him standing by the table, his face red as he hurriedly gathered the papers back into the envelope.
"Is everything okay, Dunwood?"
He nodded, clearing his throat. He ran a hand down his face, eyes going toward the door. "I'd best go get this turned in." He almost tripped over Rebel in his hurry to get out the door.
Confused by his odd change in behavior, I followed him out. "Are you sure you're okay, Sherriff? Can I get you something to drink or something?" It may have just been my imagination, but his breath sounded a little ragged.
At first, I thought he wasn't going to answer me, as he bent to throw the envelope in the front seat floorboard, but then he seemed to rally. When he turned back to face me, he was back to being the calm, cool, Sheriff dude.
"Sorry," he said. His eyes flitted back and forth as if searching for an explanation. "I must have, um, gotten a little...claustrophobic or something." He swallowed. "I'm fine now."
"My place is a bit on the small side," I said, slowly, "if I'd known it bothered you, we could have gone to the workshop. Lots of space there."
He ran a hand down his face again, which I was beginning to suspect was his version of a nervous tic. "It's, uh, never bothered me before." He took a breath and changed the subject. "You have a .38, right?"
I nodded. "Short-nosed Lady Smith with a rubber grip."
"I take it you know how to use it?"
"I do. My dad taught me and my sister how to shoot when we were just teenagers." While our classmates had been playing with makeup and stuffing their bras, my sister Dell and I had been trading karate kicks and shooting at targets. Maybe being wolves wasn't the only thing that had made us different.
"What's your gun of choice, Dunwood? Your private gun, I mean...not your service revolver."
He gave another halfway strangled sound and his hand fairly flew to his reddened face. "I, um..." he stammered. "I gotta go."
Without another word, he jumped into his vehicle and would have burned rubber, if that had been possible to do on loose gravel. I stood there for a minute, dumbfounded, staring as his Explorer flew down my drive and disappeared into the trees that lined the road. What on earth had gotten into him?
Reb came out and stood beside me, looking up at me in question. I shrugged. "Who knows?" I said. Since we were already outside, we loped a full circuit around the cabin, checking for the scent of anything unusual. Nothing sinister came to nose.
Reb went in the doggie door, and I opened the people door and followed. We both headed over to stand before the fireplace to knock off the chill. That's when I noticed my dry erase board was still propped up on my nightstand, clearly visible from the kitchen. Yesterday's discarded tee shirt was draped over the top of the board, hiding items one and two. Item number four had been circled in red with tiny little stars, making it stand doubly out as if the word 'sex' wasn't enough on its own.
It's not every day a man gets to see a woman's weekly to-do list. Score another round to Coyote.
Chapter 15
I was laying sprawled across my bed considering a move to Alaska when my phone rang. Oh goody, another chance to embarrass myself. I answered it just to stop the annoying song, which had changed yet again. Although I couldn't quite place the tune—it was elevator music style—I had no doubt it was fitted to the caller.
The phone was to my ear, but I just couldn't gather the energy to talk. Especially as I had neglected to look at the caller ID before answering. If Dunwood's voice came over the phone, I could still hang up and he'd think it was a phone malfunction. So I waited.
"Babe? You there?" Mason. A guilty conscience made me sit up in bed, swinging my feet onto the floor. For some reason it seemed wrong to talk to him in the very bed I planned to have sex with Jed in. If I could even bring myself to do it now without the thought of Dunwood thinking about me
doing it. Creator, I was conflicted.
"Mason. How's the case coming?"
"All wrapped up and good to go." The sound of shuffling paper came through over the phone. "I've even had a chance to follow up on a couple of things with your family's case." Mason had been great, helping me right from the beginning in my search for the killer. It was his vast governmental resources that had given us the information we had collected so far. Which granted wasn't all that much.
"With the wolf attack up there, I got worried about our serial killer deciding to strike again. I went back through all the old files searching for anything that may have linked the victims."
Like being werewolves? Of course what I said was, "Any luck?"
"As a matter fact, yes. It was so small a clue the investigators totally missed it the first few times around. But with the computer power we have available now, I did a comprehensive search and compare on all the files, looking for absolutely any match, not just names and places like had been done before."
"What were you hoping to find?"
"That's just it. At the time, I didn't have a clue what I was looking for. But one household item came up in all of the files. Every single one."
"Okay, and does that tie into a suspect?" I mean, come on, I could think of at least a dozen things any responsible were would have on hand.
"Unfortunately, no. Not yet. But it is a link between the victims. Kind of an early warning device. The serial killer liked to play with his hits a little. Every one of the victims received a copy of the song 'Lil Red Riding Hood' within a week of their murder."
Now he had my attention. Two days before the fateful camping trip, my mother had received a package containing that album. She had been sure it had come from Grandma, but Gran had been out when Mom called. After their deaths, it had just faded away into my memory banks. Obviously, the Luparii organization had some pretty twisted hunters on their payroll.
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