The Frenzy War

by Gregory Lamberson

  With a contemplative expression, Gomez drew in his breath and exhaled. “There’s days when I wish I was on the outside, not locked up in here, so I guess you could say I regret that. But like I told your husband two years ago when he came to see me, I think it’s a good thing that I’m in here and people on the outside are safe. Do I regret killing those broads?” A wide smile broke out across his face. “No, I had

  to do it. I had something inside me that I had to let out. When it finally came, it was like I came. I’ve never felt so free, so … natural in my life.”

  “Those women had family, friends, loved ones. You caused them immeasurable pain. Don’t you feel bad about that?”

  Gomez shrugged. “Do they feel bad about the pain in my life? A junkie for a mother with a creep boyfriend who raped my sister? I never asked for any of that.”

  “Do you blame your mother for what happened to you?”

  “Nah. I understand it now. We were a lot alike. She dealt with it her way—crack—and I dealt with it mine.”

  “You mean murder.”

  “Murder, I don’t know. Murder is when one human being kills another one, right? Unless it’s during war or something. Well, I ain’t human.”

  Mace sat up in his seat.

  “What are you, then?”

  Gomez leaned forward. “I’m a wolf, baby, a freaking werewolf, just like the Manhattan Werewolf. That’s why Captain Anthony Mace came to see me: because he knew it too.”

  “Oh no,” Landry said.

  Mace glanced through the glass partition at Shelly and Norton, who both turned in their seats, their backs to him, to watch the interview on the TV mounted on the support column. He could tell Cheryl was fighting not to react.

  “You … believe you’re a werewolf?”

  “Believe it? I know it. Just like I know there are thousands more like me across this great country of ours.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Mace knew that Cheryl had to ask the obvious follow-up questions.

  “Because another werewolf told me. See, there’s an entire society out there that I never knew existed, a society that you and people like you don’t even have a clue about. But I met this guy in here, and he recognized me for what I am. He knew exactly what I was going through. He understood my pain to a T, and he told me about the Greater Pack of New York City and smaller packs across the good old USA. He taught me how to get in touch with my inner self. Thank God for prison.”

  “So you and the Manhattan Werewolf were two of a kind?”

  “You got it.”

  “Do you know what happened to him?”

  Gomez hesitated. “I assume he’s got to be dead. Your husband was gunning for him, right? I’m lucky he took me alive.”

  Mace covered his mouth with one hand.

  “Let’s talk about you, not my husband. I can talk to him anytime, but this is the only chance I may ever get to talk to you. Why did you request this interview?”

  “Because the people out there have to know what’s happening. This isn’t about me, and it isn’t about the Manhattan Werewolf. It’s about werewolves everywhere. Your mailman could be one. Your sister could be one. Hell, you could even be one. Wouldn’t that surprise Sheriff Mace?”

  Cheryl looked even more uncomfortable. “What do these werewolves want?”

  “How should I know? Don’t you see? I didn’t know I

  was one of them until I got in here. I guess they want what everyone wants—more vacation time, more money, better behaved kids. I’ll never know, because I’m never getting out of here. But I’ll tell you this much: they’re an endangered species, and they’re getting more endangered every day. That’s what’s going on in the streets of New York right now. It’s open season on werewolves. They’re the ones getting killed by these terrorists.”

  “You mean the Lourdes and Wilson families?”

  “Yeah, sure, them. Who do you think did that?”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “The Brotherhood of Torquemada. Look them up.” Gomez stared straight at the camera. “They’ve been around for centuries. They wiped out the werewolves in Europe, and now they want to do the same thing here. This is all-out war.”

  “Holy shit,” Landry said.

  “The werewolf is out of the bag,” Mace said.

  His cell phone vibrated, and he checked its display: Jim Mint. Sighing, he took the call. “Yeah?”

  “I take it you’re watching TV right now,” Mint said.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Have you violated your nondisclosure agreement?”

  “No, I haven’t discussed any of this with Cheryl, and I know Gomez insisted on not doing a preinterview with her. She had no idea what he had on his mind.”

  “Well, how the hell does he know all of this?”

  “Maybe you should take him at face value.”

  “What, that he’s a fucking werewolf?”

  “We call them Class Ls around here.”

  “Jesus H., the shit is really going to hit the fan now. Gomez just blew the lid off everything and accused you of killing the Manhattan Werewolf.”

  “Let me call you back. I’m missing my show. We need to know what else Gomez says.” Mace shut off his phone.

  The camera cut back to Cheryl. “Can you prove to everyone who’s watching right now that you’re a werewolf?”

  “You mean, like change right now on TV?”

  “That’s right. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a live broadcast is worth a thousand pictures. Prove to the audience that you’re not just wasting their time with some Halloween story.”

  A slow smile spread across Gomez’s features. “I can do that.”

  With trembling fingers, Mace looked up Warden Strand’s phone number.

  “But I’m not going to,” Gomez said. “Turning into a werewolf on live TV would be stupid. I’d be signing my death warrant.”

  Mace’s finger hovered above Send.

  “When you stood trial, you claimed insanity as a defense, didn’t you?” Cheryl said.

  Gomez’s smile faded. “Sure, I wanted to get off. Who wouldn’t rather spend time in a loony bin than in a maximum security prison with a bunch of killers? I’ve got a heightened sense of smell. The animals in here stink.”

  “How do we know you’re not crazy?”

  “The court shrinks said I was sane. I stood trial, and now here I am.”

  Cheryl’s voice tightened. “You butchered five women.”

  “Butchered is a strong word. I hunted them.”

  “And you ate parts of them. That’s called cannibalism.”

  “I already told you I’m not human, so it wasn’t cannibalism. It was one species of animal eating another. That’s the natural order.”

  “And since you came to prison, you’ve been in numerous violent incidents, haven’t you?”

  “Who can blame me? I’m a caged animal.”

  “You bit off one man’s nose and ate another man’s fingers …”

  Gomez moved as if he wanted to raise one hand to make a point and grew frustrated that his chains prevented him from doing so. “I see what you’re trying to do, but it won’t work. I’m not crazy. I’m a goddamned werewolf!”

  “Don’t they have staff psychiatrists here?”

  Gomez’s lips formed a snarl. “So what?”

  “I think you need to get better acquainted with them.”

  Roaring, Gomez lunged at Cheryl, but the chains snapped him back. A reaction shot of Cheryl showed her eyes following movement to the left of Gomez. A reverse angle zoomed out to reveal two of the corrections officers aiming their shotguns at Gomez, who settled back with a snort, his hair disheveled.

  “You bitch,” he said. “You fucking bitch. If I ever get out of here, I swear I’ll eat you alive.”

  Cheryl remained stoic. “You had the last word, Mr. Gomez. This interview is over. I doubt you’ll ever be allowed to give another one. Thank you for your time.”

&
nbsp; Mace heard only silence over Cheryl’s close-up, which meant that both microphones had been cut off. The picture shifted to B-roll footage of the exterior of the prison during daylight.

  “She turned it around,” Landry said with admiration in his voice.

  Good girl, Mace thought.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Cheryl watched the guards drag Gomez snarling out of the room. She waited until the door slammed shut before she rose on wobbling knees.

  Ryan strode over to her and put one arm around her. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. That wasn’t what I expected.”

  The door to the corridor burst open, and Colleen ran in, followed by Strand and the guard who had been waiting outside.

  “Honey, I don’t know what the hell that was, but you were dynamite.”

  “I didn’t think it would get that crazy,” Cheryl said. “I knew it would be sensational, but we just fed into the werewolf frenzy.”

  “Fed into it? We pushed it to a whole new level.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Strand said.

  “For what? You helped deliver gold to us.”

  Cheryl’s cell phone vibrated, and she knew Tony was calling her. She took the phone out and pressed it to her ear. “I’m here.”

  “How do you feel?” Tony said.

  “My hand is shaking.”

  “I bet it is.”

  “I never gave much thought to how it must have been for you when you arrested him.”

  “I had a gun in my hand. I felt fine.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t have one in my hand.”

  “Do me a favor and get out of there, will you? Don’t hang around to sign autographs.”

  “I’m leaving as soon as I can.”

  “You did well. I think you might have pulled my bacon out of the frying pan.”

  “I knew he’d bring you up, but—”

  “Don’t worry. Just be glad it’s over. Now get home safely. I’ll try to be waiting for you when you walk in.”

  “Okay.” Cheryl hung up and looked at Colleen. “Can we please leave right now?”

  Colleen cupped her hands over Cheryl’s cheeks. “You bet your ass we can.” She turned to Ryan. “We’ll see you all back at the station. Warden, we’re ready to take the express train out of here.”

  The prison gates rolled open, and Colleen drove her car

  through them. “Whew, I don’t ever want to set foot in there again,” she said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “But it was worth it, wasn’t it?”

  “I guess so,” Cheryl said.

  “I detect a lack of enthusiasm.”

  “We didn’t really get into any of the areas I wanted to explore.”

  “There was no way you could have expected him to go off on that tangent.”

  “He controlled the conversation, not me.”

  “You did what you had to and rolled with the punches. Besides, you grabbed him by the balls at the end and didn’t let go. That’s what people will remember.”

  “No, they’ll remember that he claimed he was a werewolf and that my husband supposedly killed another werewolf.”

  “And an urban legend was born: Captain Anthony Mace, werewolf slayer. Do you think Tony will do a follow-up interview, or would that be too weird?”

  Cheryl shook her head. “He won’t do an interview with me or anyone else.”

  “Too bad. I remember when he was a media darling before he dropped off the map. This would be a great opportunity for him to make a comeback. Carl Rice made enough money off Tony’s name. Maybe he should write his own book. You could write it together!”

  “Tony’s had enough of the limelight.” Maybe I have too. “We didn’t exactly fill the whole hour …”

  “We’ve got plenty.”

  They drove through Ossining, then along the Hudson.

  Colleen turned the radio on to a news station.

  Cheryl saw her glancing into the rearview mirror. “Is something wrong?”

  “The car behind us came out of nowhere, and it’s moving fast.”

  Cheryl looked over her shoulder as the back window filled with light. Then Colleen’s car screeched to a sudden stop, flinging Cheryl forward.

  “What the hell?” Colleen said.

  Cheryl saw a van idling in the street ahead of them, positioned perpendicular to the road and blocking their way. “Oh, my God.”

  Doors opened and closed, and silhouetted figures encircled the van from all sides.

  Colleen activated the locks.

  Cheryl’s heart pounded in her chest. “Just get out of here. Run over them if you have to. Plow through that van!”

  Colleen twisted the steering wheel to her left, but her window exploded in a shower of glass.

  Cheryl recoiled, pressing herself against her door.

  A figure wearing some sort of mask or goggles leaned in through Colleen’s window and pressed a cloth over her mouth and nose. Colleen turned her panic-stricken eyes to Cheryl and reached toward her with an outstretched hand, fingers clawing air in desperation.

  Cheryl grasped Colleen’s hand, reassuring her despite the terror she felt.

  Then the window behind her crashed apart, and gloved hands groped for her. She turned her head, evading the

  cloth she saw in one of her attacker’s hands, but the figure jerked her head back and covered her mouth and nose with the wet rag. Colleen’s eyelids fluttered and closed. Holding her breath and clawing at the arms of her attacker, Cheryl kicked out with her left leg, striking the steering wheel with her heel, and blasted the car horn.

  Colleen pitched forward, and Cheryl had no choice but to suck in oxygen. The chemical in which the rag had been doused took immediate effect, burning her nostrils and clouding her mind. As she lost consciousness, she wondered who kept honking that damned car horn.

  Karol pulled into the Fifth Precinct parking lot.

  “You think we should stop by the office?” Willy said. The doctor at the ER had given him a clean bill of health.

  “No. If we do, we’ll never get out of there.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. So your place or mine?”

  “Neither. I’m exhausted. I need sleep. So do you.”

  “I’m tired but not that tired. My adrenaline’s pumping.”

  “Save it for tomorrow. You’re going to need it.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “For the job”

  “All work and no play makes Detective Williams a dull werewolf.”

  “Look, ifwe’re going to do this, you’d better get your terminology right. I’m a Wolf. We don’t like to be called werewolves.”

  “Whatever you say.” He leaned close for a kiss. “Are you crazy? Not here, not now. Anyone could see us.”

  He sat back. “All right, be that way. We’ll have this big secret romance. But someday the truth will come out. It always does.”

  “Good night.”

  “Good night.” Willy exited the SUV, jogged across the lot, and got into his own vehicle. He noticed Karol hadn’t left. Leaning forward, he saw her speaking on her phone.

  Interesting. With Gabriel dead, who could she be talking to?

  Karol drove away, and Willy started his engine.

  Mace entered the house at 9:45 PM and loosened his tie. Anna sat at the dining room table, textbooks spread before her. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he said.

  She smiled at him. “That’s okay. I understand. I saw the news.”

  He pulled off his tie. “I thought your mother was going to relieve you?”

  Anna closed her books. “She came up earlier. I didn’t mind coming back. Patty’s asleep.”

  “Great. We appreciate this.”

  “I also saw Mrs. Mace’s interview. It was really disturbing.”

  “Wasn’t it, though?” His cell phone vibrated, and he saw Candice’s name on the display. “Excuse me.” He pressed the phone against his ear. “Go, Candice.”

  “I just got a call from the police department in Ossining.�
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  Cheryl’s been in a car accident, he thought.

  “Brace yourself: Cheryl’s missing.”

  He felt as if someone had slammed him in the center of

  his chest. “What do you mean?”

  “The Manhattan Minute crew van discovered Colleen Wanglund’s car parked on the side of a road with its windows broken and Wanglund inside. She appears to have been drugged. The first thing she did was ask what happened to Cheryl. Ossining PD is trying to put together a statement, but it looks like someone snatched your wife.”

  Feeling the blood rush from his head, Mace grabbed the back of a chair with his free hand to steady himself. “Where’s the crime scene?”

  Candice described the location. “Manhattan Missing Persons is there now. They want you to stay at your house in case someone calls about a ransom.”

  “There isn’t going to be a ransom demand, just like there wasn’t one for Rhonda Wilson. This is the Brotherhood’s doing. Call Brooklyn PD and have them send four squad cars over here. I want one parked at each end of my street, stopping every vehicle and pedestrian that tries to come through. I want the other two in front of my house. Tell Landry to come here too. I need him to watch over my daughter and babysit the Missing Persons detectives.”

  “Landry’s already on his way over. What about me? I want to help.”

  “The best thing you can do is monitor all relevant activity from there while you finish your shift.”

  “Okay, I’ll stay in touch. You do the same thing.”

  “Right.” Shutting off his phone, he turned to Anna. “I’m sorry, but I need you to stay here.”

  “Is Mrs. Mace all right?”

  She’s going to hear about it on the news anyway. “No. She’s been abducted.”

  Anna scrunched up her face in fear. “By the Brotherhood of Torquemada?”

  She had said she’d seen Cheryl’s interview. “I don’t know. The police are coming here. Everyone in the house will be safe. I won’t leave until they arrive. Some detectives from Missing Persons are coming, and a friend of mine named Ken Landry. You can answer any questions they have, but don’t speak to anyone else. Don’t even answer the phone. Do what Ken says. If I need to speak to you, I’ll call your cell phone.”

  “Yes, Captain.”