In The Company of Wolves_Follow The Raven

by James Michael Larranaga

  “Well then, for the rest of today’s session I’m going to administer the Rorschach.”

  “The inkblot test?”

  “Yes. The Rorschach is one of several tests we give to paranormal trainees along with the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, which you’ve already taken.”

  “You want me to stare at inkblots and tell you what I see?” Quin said, amused.

  “It’s that simple.”

  “That test is bullshit. It doesn’t prove anything. Why should I take it?”

  He was smarter and more inquisitive than the others who’d come in for training over the years. Most of the recruits were happy to have a purpose or a job, and their families were relieved that they had something constructive to do. The majority of the recruits worked tirelessly in the hopes that they would be mainstreamed into society, but she knew Quin didn’t care about fitting in. He wasn’t motivated by peer approval. But she knew he still had some respect for authority.

  Dr. Hayden sighed and closed her notebook. “Why should you take the Rorschach test? Because Agent Kruse wants you to.”

  Jogging down a stairwell, Quin listened to Sal’s croaking frog of a voice on speakerphone. Text messages were routine for the guy, but when he left an angry voice mail, it was urgent. Today, Sal had a theory: the reason so many of his clients were skipping town was that his competitor, Arnie Cook of A+ Bail Bonds, was bribing them to run off.

  “Can you believe it?!” His voice echoed in the stairwell. “Arnie is bleeding me dry. I can bankroll a handful of perps skippin’ town but damn it if I’m gonna let him set all of ‘em free! Where the hell are you? Call me!”

  Quin exited the stairwell into the lobby of the hospital, dodging patients and medical staff in scrubs. The doors opened and a warm late-afternoon breeze enveloped him as he walked across the hot pavement to his truck. It was one thing for a skip to bribe a bounty hunter—that happened all the time. But since when had the bail bond industry turned on itself like a snake eating its own tail? He climbed into his truck, started it up, and got the AC blowing before he dialed.

  “It’s a beautiful day of freedom, this is Sal, how can I help you?”

  “It’s me,” Quin replied.

  “Finally! Where you been?”

  “I’m at work on my lunch hour. I only have a few minutes.”

  “What you do with them feds ain’t work,” he said. “You get my messages? We got problems.”

  “You do, not me.”

  “He said, she said, whatever. That fact is, Arnie Cook is screwing me.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “One of the other bounty hunters told me as much.”

  It was no surprise that Sal had other bounties working for him. Most bounties were free agents anyway, picking up the best-paying assignments or the lowest-hanging fruit. “Which bounty told you that?”

  “Finn.”

  There were two Finn brothers who worked together in the business. Quin remembered seeing them at Moose Lake while searching for Gino Baxter. The Finns were a good team, they had each other’s backs. “Which Finn?”

  “Beats me, they’re carbon copies of each other,” Sal said. “Nordic gods, those two with their blond hair and ice-blue eyes…”

  Silence.

  “Hello. You still fantasizing, Sal?”

  “Huh? No, it was the taller one with the muscles.”

  “Muscles is Mike and the skinny one is Steven,” Quin said. “That’s how I tell them apart.”

  “Mike told me that there are rumors about what Arnie over at A-Plus Bonds is doing to me.”

  “Could be bullshit talk. Why would Arnie do something like that?”

  “To drive me out of business!” Sal said. “Do you not understand capitalism?”

  Of course he understood the laws of supply and demand, but he also knew time was a precious commodity. “I got other plans tonight.”

  “What could be more important than helping your old friend Sal?”

  “Having dinner with Hawk.”

  “Oh, come on, Hawk has all kinds of widows out there bringing him meals.”

  The old man certainly was popular with the ladies, even with some of the younger ones in their fifties who gambled at the casino and invited him off the reservation for drinks. Still, he wanted to check on him rather than drive downtown to hear Sal bitch and moan.

  “I got to see Hawk and make sure he’s all right before I leave town.”

  “You leaving? When…where?”

  “Maybe as early as next week, back to Arizona,” Quin said. “Heading south on the freeway to the Wakan Indian Reservation outside of Shakopee.”

  “No, no, no, you’re staying here to help me patch the holes in this boat!” Sal’s gravelly voice filled the truck with demands and expectations. He told Quin how important he was, how he trusted him like his own prodigal son, even though he never had any sons (that he knew of anyway). Quin doubted he even knew what the word prodigal meant.

  “If the Finns are telling the truth, ask them for help. They can round up those skips as fast as I can,” he said.

  “They’re not as fast as you, Quin. And they always want more than I’m willing to pay.”

  “I’ll be back in a few weeks.”

  “Weeks?”

  Dr. Hayden had waited patiently for Agent Kruse to return to his office, checking e-mails from her phone as he entered. She was already seated in a chair in front of his desk, and now handed him a file as he sat down. “Quin’s test results.”

  Kruse opened the file and read through her summary. She knew from his expression that words were leaping off the page: hesitation, second-guessing, overanalyzing. That was how Dr. Hayden had described Quin’s answers on the Rorschach test. Quin’s Rorschach Interpretations were as follows:

  Moth

  Two humans

  Women dancing

  Man standing

  Butterfly

  Animal hide

  Kissing faces

  Two dogs

  Human face

  Lobster

  “These are all common answers,” Kruse said to her. “I would’ve expected he’d see ravens and wolves.”

  “He was very spontaneous; he hardly gave them any thought at all. You know, we never administer the Rorschach test anymore.”

  Kruse looked up from the file. “Why, because the test is outdated junk science, just like remote viewing? Is that what you mean?”

  This was a sore spot for Kruse and she knew it. Only 20 percent of correctional psychologists like Dr. Hayden administered the Rorschach test, while 80 percent of clinical psychologists relied on it routinely. This was a hospital but also a correctional facility, and she wasn’t always comfortable with Kruse’s test methods.

  “I’m not criticizing your program. But some of the validation methods are outdated, yes,” she said.

  “Actually, I shouldn’t be surprised at these results,” he said, shuffling through the file. “He’s been under our close supervision for almost six months. No wonder he’s acting so normal.”

  “In that regard, he’s made progress.”

  “Really? We’ve got him on such a short leash, he’s starting to lose his natural instincts. He’s lost his sixth sense. What if we stopped his medication?”

  She leaned closer to his desk. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  “Step him down slowly?”

  “He could become violent again.”

  She knew Kruse was aware of Quin’s previous outbursts, and while those incidents were problems for the FBI’s director of public affairs, Kruse never seemed bothered by them at all.

  “Soon he’ll be on the streets tracking terrorists. Violence is a necessary part of the job.”

  “You want me to reduce Quin’s medication?” she asked. “I’d need to document that in his medical file.”

  “To the same dosage he was at before joining our team. He won’t be a danger to himself or anyone else,” Kruse said.

  “But on
that low dosage, he had hallucinations and nearly killed Ben Moretti.”

  “Nearly killing somebody in the line of duty isn’t a crime,” Kruse said. “Go back to his previous dosage. And there’s no more need for random drug testing for Quin.”

  She looked at Kruse as if he were crazy. “You know he was high on ayahuasca tea when they dragged him into the hospital back in January.”

  “I remember.”

  “Without the threat of a drug test, Quin is likely to return to his old habits.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping for, a return to Quin’s old ways, no matter how fringe those ways might’ve been. I’m realizing now that we accidentally blocked his psychic abilities with medication. I need to see what he’s like in his more natural state. If Quin needs to self-medicate, then so be it,” Kruse said, handing Dr. Hayden her file back. “No more drug tests for this one.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “But what if he’s burned out? What if he wants to quit?”

  “Why? What have you heard?”

  “Seems like he could use a break from all of this,” she said, shuffling papers into the file.

  “We’re very close to a field trial. It’s too soon for a vacation.”

  “He wants to go back to Arizona, to search for his sister. You encouraged him to do it by giving him the file months ago.”

  “I said he could do it on his free time, not on my time.”

  “How much investigating can he possibly do from Minnesota? Why not give him a vacation back to Arizona where he can get some closure?” she asked. “He’ll come back refreshed.”

  “But if we cut his meds, how can we monitor the effects?” he retorted, though considering her idea.

  “I’ll adjust his meds immediately so we can observe him before he leaves. Have him check in regularly on the bureau’s secure videoconferencing line,” she said. “I can even do his weekly therapy sessions by video.”

  Kruse nodded, his face lighting up. “We can make Quin’s trip back home the field trial. We’ll test the paranormal team by having them all focus on the search for his sister from Minnesota, while Quin is on the ground in Arizona. It’s a brilliant idea, Dr. Hayden.”

  She blinked at him in surprise. “I’m not recommending a field trial while he’s taking personal time off.”

  “Of course you are,” Kruse said. “On some subliminal level, you want to know as much as Quin whether RV even works. I’ll show you both.”

  In a hospital break room reserved for paranormals in training, Quin listened to Dillan fretting about how Kruse constantly expected more from them, demanding more accurate viewings. He nodded along as he read his e-mails and annoying texts from Sal Foster.

  “You wanna get dinner tonight?” Dillan asked, rubbing the red eczema between his knuckles.

  “Why, what’s your mom making?”

  “Hold on,” he said, texting the Mother Ship. “She’ll make whatever we want.”

  Quin read another text from Sal. The guy was still anxious about his growing list of skips and wanted a commitment from Quin to work the weekend. He’d wait before replying.

  “I got plans.”

  “Ah, come on. What if she makes rib eye?”

  “I might stop by the rez tonight to see a friend.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Dillan said.

  He thought about this socially awkward kid with the baggy pants and a mop of hair riding along with him. “Probably not a good idea.”

  “Why? How come?”

  How could he explain this to Dillan without hurting his feelings? The kid was so fragile and innocent, but also blind to social cues. The last thing Quin needed was him gawking at tribal members from his truck.

  “Is it because I’m too white?”

  Quin held back his laughter by biting his lip. “Yeah, something like that.”

  “Damn it!” Dillan scratched his knuckles.

  Quin watched as Agent Kruse approached the break room with his hands in his pockets. He stood there for a moment before interrupting. “What’s wrong, Dillan?”

  The kid remained slumped in his chair. “My knuckles itch, that’s all,” he replied without turning to look at him. He knew to turn on the crazy when it suited his own selfish needs.

  “Check in with the nurse before you leave. Get some ointment for your hands,” Kruse said. “Do you mind if I speak with Quin?”

  “Go right ahead,” Dillan said.

  “Alone, please?”

  Dillan winked at Quin. “Alone right now?”

  “Yes.” Kruse jingled coins in his pockets.

  “Fine, why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Dillan stood and tugged his shirt down over his belt. “See ya tomorrow.”

  Dillan walked down the hall, counting the tiles on the floor, and Quin waited for him to round a corner before he said, “Have a seat.”

  Kruse sat across from him at the small table, pushing aside candy wrappers Dillan had left behind. “Was he bitching about work again?”

  “Dillan? You know how he is sometimes.”

  “He might be right. I’ve been working the team pretty hard lately. You even mentioned being burned out.”

  “I’m not used to working indoors as much as the others,” Quin admitted.

  “And you’re interested in possibly working on your sister’s case full-time?”

  Kruse had obviously spoken to Dr. Hayden. He knew they’d talk, but hadn’t expected his boss to circle back so quickly. “It’s time for me to go back there. I’m about due for some vacation time anyway.”

  Kruse nodded, hands folded in front of him on the table. “Good idea. But who knows how long you’ll be down there? Your sister has been missing for a long time. Won’t you need more than a couple of weeks?”

  “I suppose.” Quin shrugged to keep him at bay.

  “What if we help from here? What if you go into the field and the paranormal team gives you support?”

  “No thanks, I prefer to work solo,” he said, knowing that Kruse wanted to keep him in close contact.

  “Quin, this isn’t like looking for some skip who busted bail two days ago. This is a cold case, extremely cold. You’re about to go looking for a family member who hasn’t been seen in twelve years. How will you even know where to start?”

  “Same place the feds should’ve started, with my tribe,” he said, remembering the sloppy investigation that lasted no more than two weeks. The bureau had partnered with the tribal police, as if this was a mere formality, but they didn’t care what happened to his family. To them it was just another drug deal gone bad on the border between the Land of the Free and No Man’s Land. There was a reason the FBI file Kruse had given him was so thin; nobody cared about the Lighthorns because they were dirt-poor and the poor…well, they didn’t count. “I know what I have to do,” he said, staring Kruse directly in the eyes.

  “You interview a few tribal members, then what? They either know nothing or they’ll send you off to dead ends.”

  That was a possibility for sure. Quin’s family was a loose band of cousins, aunts, and uncles on his mother’s side. He didn’t even know specifically where his father’s white family lived; he thought it was somewhere in Florida. Neither family had wanted Quin after the murders of his parents because some feared he was the murderer, and others thought the real killers would come back for him. He had been a boy stuck in the middle of nothing and eventually shoved into the foster system. Agent Kruse was the closest Quin had come to a father figure in a long time, but he was strict, and sometimes overbearing. Maybe that was how fathers were.

  “What would the paranormal team do?” he asked.

  “They’d stay here and view targets for you to investigate,” Kruse said. “You can travel alone and report back what you’re finding.”

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a vacation.”

  “C’mon, you work every weekend bounty hunting anyway, right?”

  He woul
dn’t answer that question. He didn’t want to get cornered in one of Kruse’s logical arguments where “this therefore that” always fit like some kind of 10,000-piece puzzle.

  “I can make it a working vacation. How about no more drug testing?” Kruse said. “No Big Brother looking over your shoulder expecting you to pee in a cup. What do you think?”

  There was no smile on the man’s face and no hint of sarcasm in his voice. He said it so casually, as if he were offering him a cigarette. Now that would feel like a vacation.

  “You want me to go back to using?”

  “No, not at all. Your training is over, Quin. I’m setting you free. Fly like an eagle.”

  “But you want me to keep in touch, so…more like a homing pigeon.”

  “Well, before you start trashing my idea, let me show you what I mean. Tomorrow in training I’ll show you how it would work. Agreed?”

  Quin’s phone chirped with another text message from Sal Foster. It was only mid-week and the guy was hounding him. It felt pretty good, though, to have all these people begging for his assistance. And Kruse was willing to bend the rules, or at least look the other way, while Quin was on the road.

  “Okay, tomorrow show me what you mean, and then I have to start making plans to head south.”

  Quin maneuvered his truck through traffic as a dream catcher that Hawk had once given him swung back and forth from the rearview mirror. It was his reminder to Quin to focus on good thoughts that came his way. And he was starting to feel good, tying up loose ends and looking forward to a road trip. Over dinner he’d tell Hawk that it was official, he would soon be leaving for Arizona.

  When he drove up Hawk’s street, the sun was still high on the horizon and all he could see were two silhouettes in the driveway. He pulled to the curb and realized that Hawk’s grandson, Slim Jim, was barely helping his elder carry groceries out of his shiny black Bronco. Hawk held a twelve-pack of Coke under one arm and a paper grocery bag in the other. Slim Jim was wearing a hockey jersey to cover his belly and he texted and carried a fountain drink.