Raised by Wolves

by Geonn Cannon

  “Hey, sweetie...”

  Dale jerked. “Where are you... sorry... I went back to sleep.” She blinked her eyes open and looked at Ari. Her expression went from confused to happy in the space of a breath. “Oh. Hey, puppy.”

  “Hey. I just wanted to let you know I was home. No pick-up tonight.”

  “Mm. Good. Thank you. Get in bed.”

  Ari almost protested that she was sweaty, but that had never bothered Dale before. Ari went around to her side of the bed and, checking to make sure her hands and feet weren’t too dirty, got under the covers and spooned Dale from behind. She kissed Dale’s hair and listened to her breathing. She knew the wolf had gone somewhere, done something, could sense there was something important stewing at the back of her brain, but if it was important, it would still be there when she woke up.

  Chapter Eight

  Ari put a tall cup of coffee down next to Preston’s head, tapping the table with its edge just loud enough to wake him. He sat straight up and squinted at her, grunted, and looked around as if he expected a mob to have formed. Finally, as Ari took the seat across from him, he looked down at the coffee.

  “What’s this?”

  “It tastes like marshmallows. My partner hates coffee, but she thinks this stuff is more like cocoa. It’s really good. I got a cup myself.” She lifted the cup as proof, then took a sip. “You look like you’ve had a rough morning.”

  Preston sniffed the coffee. “Not much of a coffee drinker.”

  “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “I’m not a beggar,” Preston snapped, just a little too fast.

  Ari smiled. “It’s just a saying. Although...” She looked him up and down. She was dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a button-down under a hoodie, and she felt like she was on the hipster side of shabby. Preston’s homeless attire looked a bit more authentic. “Does the hotel where your mom put you up not have a laundry service?”

  Preston sneered at her. “Aren’t you supposed to be looking for our tapestry?”

  “I’m doing that,” she said. “But I need your help. Maybe you saw something when you were breaking in to loot your mother’s house.”

  He stiffened and looked down at the bag he’d been using as a pillow. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Come on, Presto, I’m a detective. The barista said you’ve been coming in here every day for the past week. You use their outlets and their wifi, then head out when the crowds come in. So what was it? You were worried about not getting enough in the will so after she passed, you decided to get in there and take whatever you could carry?”

  He kept his hands on the backpack, leaning in and lowering his voice. “It isn’t like that. I’m not stealing anything.”

  Ari poked the bag. He rolled his eyes and unzipped it, lifting the top so she could see inside. Jeans, T-shirts, toiletries.

  “I’m sleeping there. I had a disagreement with my landlord and I’ve been locked out of my apartment for about a week. I was crashing with friends, but they were starting to get sick of me promising I would pay them back with interest once... you know...” He had the good grace to look ashamed. “Once I got some money that was coming in.”

  “Classy,” Ari said.

  “Hey, it’s not like I’m grave robbing. Mom made her decision. And there’s shit in that house I actually could pawn, you know. If I wanted to. But I’m not going to do that. I go there at night to do laundry. Cook food. Sleep a few hours in a comfortable bed. I mean, it’s just a big house sitting there, gathering dust. Amenities paid up until the end of the month. So why not take advantage of it? I sneak in after dark and then leave before dawn just in case anyone comes sniffing around.”

  “I thought your mother offered to put you all up in hotels.”

  He laughed. “The girls, the girls, she offered to put the girls up in hotels. Because they had to come so far. Because they have lives out...” He growled and wiped a hand over his face. “Someone had to be here, all right? Who do you think changes the lights in that place? Who do you think helps fix the lift when it breaks and leaves her stranded on the second floor? I know they talk about me behind my back and talk about my ‘allowance,’ but I earn that money, okay?”

  Ari shrugged. “If you say so. I’m only concerned about that tapestry.”

  He put his head down on the bag. “I have no idea what happened to that stupid thing, lady. I’m in that house six, maybe seven hours a night. I didn’t even think about that room because we were barely ever allowed in it. That was Mom’s study. It was where she went to read and, I don’t know, get away from us bratty kids. The door could have been unlocked the entire time and I wouldn’t have known it.”

  “Just between us, you never considered turning one of those old books into rent money?”

  He returned her stare without blinking. “I don’t like you, Tree.”

  She pushed out her bottom lip in a pout. “I think I’ll get over it, though. I have no personal opinions about you, Preston. I’m not one of your sisters. Right now, all you are is a person who had access to the scene of the crime when nobody else did. You’re the only one who went into the house between Sunday night and yesterday morning. If you’re not the thief, then you’re the person best suited to know who it might have been. Were there signs of anyone else being in the house this week?”

  “I have no idea. Like I said, I was there to sleep, eat, and do laundry. I wasn’t counting the silverware. Besides, we’re not talking about some dumb knickknack. You saw the size of that thing. Taking it would be a big job. There’s no way you could sneak it out even if you wanted to.”

  “Yeah...” Ari hated to admit he had a point. Sneaking laundry in the side door was one thing, but taking out a six-by-four tapestry, even rolled up, would be noticeable. “Do you think it’s possible the tapestry was taken before your mother passed away?”

  “She barely ever left the house.”

  “She left the house four times in the week before she died,” Ari said. “She took you and your sisters all out to special goodbye events.”

  Preston flinched at that, which she filed away as odd. “Sure, I guess those times. But the only people who knew about that was us, and I guess if she made reservations. No one could have planned a complicated heist to happen in the few hours she was gone. But it’s just as unlikely anyone could have gotten in there when she was still around to catch them.”

  Ari held her hands up. “Help me out then, Preston, because the tapestry is gone. We’re sitting here talking about how completely impossible it would be to steal it when we both saw it with our own eyes. How do you explain that?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t. That’s supposed to be your job.”

  “Right,” she sighed. She stood up and dropped a twenty on the table between them. “Get breakfast. It’s on your mom’s tab.”

  He looked like he wanted to fling the money back at her, but he grabbed it and shoved it into his pocket with what might have been a mumbled thanks. She started to leave but had second thoughts.

  “I lived on the street for a long time. I had a house I could’ve gone back to, I had family waiting to take me in. If I had swallowed my pride, I could have saved myself a lot of grief. I might not have turned out to be the same person I am now. But I’m just saying, some people don’t have the option of turning their back on a lifeboat just because they don’t like who the captain is.”

  Preston snorted and looked out the window.

  “Just some friendly advice. I’ll be in touch.”

  She walked outside and stood on the sidewalk to watch traffic pass, standing not far from where she’d crouched as the wolf just a few hours earlier. The mystery of how a light turned on Monday night was solved, but the answer only gave her more questions and further solidified the impossibility of the tapestry being stolen in the past few days. She would have to get more security footage, both from Vivian’s front door camera and Fitz’s, if he was still feeling generous. She would owe Dale some
thing fancy for going through so much boring tape.

  The only thing she knew for sure was that Crossing-Over Place had been there six weeks ago, and it was gone now. At some point in between, someone had gone into the house and walked out with it. All she had to do was figure out the “how.”

  It sounded so easy on paper...

  ###

  Dale had spent the morning on the phone following up with a few art dealers who might know where and how a person might turn a priceless tapestry into a big paycheck. Everyone she called was aghast at the implication they might know anything about the art world’s black market, but a bit of gentle prodding led to most of them confessing they might have heard something somewhere, once, through whispers and urban legend. Nothing and no one they had ever done business with, of course, absolutely not. But maybe she might try this person, that gallery...

  The majority of the people she talked to were extremely excited when she mentioned the name Crossing-Over Place. Two of them forgot why she had called and asked if they could come over and see it. She left the agency’s number with all of them and asked that they call if anyone showed up trying to sell the tapestry. She got the impression that at least a handful of them were more likely to make an offer on it before alerting the authorities, but she had to try.

  She was just finishing up with one call when there was a knock on the office door. A man opened it and stuck his head inside, his bushy eyebrows raised in question. Dale smiled and held up her hand, making three motions in quick succession: hello, come in, I’ll just be a minute. He nodded and came in, sticking his hands in his pockets and looking past her out the window as he waited. His hair was faded silver from brown, and she guessed his age to be late fifties or early sixties.

  “Thank you very much, ma’am. Yes, when it’s recovered, I’ll be sure to let the owners know you’re interested.” Not that the museum would care very much, but she hadn’t said there was hope of a sale. “Have a nice day.” She hung up and turned her attention to the man. He wore a button-down shirt and khakis. The strap of a messenger bag cut across his chest. “Hi, how can we help you?”

  “I was hoping to speak with the, ah, the detective. Ariadne Willow.”

  “She had an early meeting this morning, so she’s not in yet. If you’d like to leave a message, I can have her get back to you after lunch.”

  He twisted his lips in disappointment. “That’s too bad. I was really hoping I could talk with her.” He looked at her again as if reassessing her. “You’re Dale Frye, right?”

  Warning bells rang at the back of Dale’s head, but they were quiet enough for her to push past them. “That’s right. I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Rude of me. I’m sorry. I’m Isaac Hayden.”

  Dale leaned back in her chair. “Oh, I see. Mr. Hayden. You’re the one who thinks Ari is a werewolf?” She chuckled through the last word. “I hope you don’t think you’re being creative. We named our agency Bitches. Some people go a little too far with it. Are you here to call me a werewolf, too? Because Ari and I have talked about it, and we decided I would be a werefox.” She gestured at her hair. “You know, because redhead.”

  Isaac chuckled. It was an honest laugh, almost charming, and he pulled out one of the chairs so he could sit down.

  “You’re funny, Miss Frye. Can I call you Dale?”

  “Nah.”

  He nodded without missing a beat. “Okay, Miss Frye. I’ve done a lot of research i-into hunters and canidae. The evidence is out there for whoever bothers to look for it. There’s...” He laughed and shook his head. “There’s a second species living in the world which has been around as long as civilization. You can’t hide something like that forever. Especially not now, in the age where every minute of every day is being chronicled somewhere. I assume I’m being recorded right now, either by a security camera or a microphone on your computer.”

  He wasn’t, but Dale was disappointed she hadn’t thought of it.

  “There have always been wolves in the woods,” he said. His tone indicated he was reciting something. “Beware.”

  “Ominous,” Dale said. “There have been stories about monsters in the woods forever. Fairy tales about things lurking in the dark to keep children from wandering off and getting killed by the real dangers. Bears and actual wolves and just falling off a damn cliff. But now that the world is a lot smaller, people still want the myths to be real because... well, the real world is a mess. And believing in something fantastic makes that a little easier to take.”

  Isaac was still smiling. “I came to Seattle because I was following a group of hunters who relocated here a few years ago. I found out they were looking to rekindle something called wolf manoth.”

  “Wolf mammoth?” Dale said.

  “You’re clever, I’ll give you that much. Wolf manoth. It was a yearly event where hunters would kill as many canidae as they could find. It almost happened here, in Seattle. I wanted to find out why it failed. I learned the name Ariadne Willow. She was a peacemaker. I hadn’t even started to look for her when she wandered into the deli where I was having lunch. Do you think that’s just a coincidence?”

  “No. That deli has excellent sandwiches. They attract all kinds of species.”

  His smile had faded, but Dale still didn’t think he was threatening her. He just seemed passionate. He scooted forward to the edge of his chair and poked a finger down on the desk.

  “Okay, then, about six months ago. The Howl Around the Sound.”

  Dale raised an eyebrow. “The what?”

  “A regular weekday afternoon when suddenly, out of nowhere, came the sound of howling.”

  “My neighbor’s dog does that every time a fire truck goes by.”

  All the humor had faded from his expression. “Not like this. This was as if every dog in the Seattle city limits began howling. All at once. As if on cue. People heard it all across the city. There are videos all over YouTube, from the Space Needle, to Pioneer Square, from Fremont. The one on the ferry is particularly eerie, because the howls were amplified by all the water. You didn’t hear it?”

  “Of course I heard it. I was downtown. It didn’t last very long. Everyone around just kind of looked at each other, and we checked out phones to make sure it wasn’t some terrorism bullshit, and then we went about our day.”

  He wiped a hand over his face, clearly frustrated. “Okay. Well... I’m obviously not going to make you crack. I’ll never play poker with you, Miss Frye.” He opened his messenger bag and pulled out a small, thin book. It had a cracked leather cover and was held closed by a strip of rawhide around its width and wrapped around a button on the front. He placed it on the desk in front of her. “Maybe this will help open your eyes.”

  She leaned forward to read the gold leaf lettering on the front. Her poker face may have been good, but she still couldn’t hide her surprise when she saw the title: Canidae in the Modern World, with Karl Magnusson’s name underneath it in a smaller font.

  “You recognize this, don’t you?”

  “You mentioned it to Ari when you ran into her a few weeks ago,” Dale said. “I looked it up online. This should be in Frankfurt.”

  Isaac didn’t blink. “It should be published, so the world can make up their own mind. But that’s never going to happen.” He took it back and returned it to his bag, taking out a compact book that looked as if he had bound it himself. He put it where the book had been resting. “That’s a copy of the book. I’ll leave it here for you and Miss Willow to peruse.” He stood up and went to the door. “I have to ask one thing, Miss Frye. Has Ariadne asked her mother about their wealth yet?”

  “That’s personal business, Mr. Hayden.”

  “Okay,” he said, nodding. “Okay, I was just curious. Happy reading.”

  He left, and Dale allowed herself a quick shudder. The man had been charming and personable, but there was still something about him that rubbed her the wrong way. She looked down at the book he’d left and thumbed it open. She thought
he had just photocopied the book, but it seemed as if he actually transcribed it and printed it out. She couldn’t tell if that was dedication or madness.

  Whatever it was, she definitely didn’t want to play poker with him, either.

  Chapter Nine

  Ari listened as Dale recounted the conversation she’d just had with Isaac Hayden. The phone rang just as she was about to step into the Zoo Tavern and she walked back to the corner to take the call. Dale didn’t sound overly concerned, but Ari felt as if she could run the two miles back to the office, pick up Isaac Hayden’s scent, and track him down to wherever he was in the city to make sure he knew that Dale was off limits in whatever game he was playing.

  “I’m in Eastlake,” Ari said when Dale finished. “I can be there in ten minutes.”

  “What? No, why? Honestly, it was only unnerving in how charming the guy was. Well, that and the fact he had the book.”

  Ari said, “The book of essays?”

  “Mm-hmm. You need an appointment to even look at it, and they don’t allow you to take pictures even if you’re lucky enough to get in. But this guy has the actual book...? Something really fishy there. I used the website to send a message to the owners, but they haven’t responded yet. I think it’s like nine hours later there, so I’m not worried. Yet.”

  “Well, I am. I really don’t like the idea of Hayden just dropping in like that.”

  Dale said, “I appreciate how you feel. But you’re working, right?”

  Ari worked her jaw and looked down the steeply-sloped street toward Lake Union in the distance. “Yeah,” she finally admitted. “I was about to meet up with one of the twins.”

  “And your girlfriend is tough enough to fight her own battles, right?”

  That actually got a smile out of her. “And some of mine, too.”

  “Right. I’m fine. I only told you because I knew you’d go ballistic if I waited until you got back to the office. Go be a brilliant detective, puppy. I’ll look over these essays and see if there’s anything worth mentioning.”