Way of the Wolf: Shifter Legacies 1

by Mark E. Cooper

  “Anything?” John said coming back from the witness.

  “Nah. Just a butterfly knife, but there’s no blood and it’s too small to have done this. What did you get?”

  “Nothing that’s worth anything. He works in the club behind the bar. Says he saw the victims going out the fire exit separately. He swears he doesn’t know who the third guy is.”

  “You believe him?”

  “Do I look stupid?” John with brows raised. “Don’t answer that!” he finished quickly.

  Chris shut her mouth with a smirk. “Want me to have a word?”

  “Can’t hurt, but I doubt you’ll get much.”

  “We’ll see,” she said heading over to speak with the man. “What’s his name?”

  “Jones, if you can believe it. Jason Jones.”

  She nodded and cornered Jones just as he was about to leave. Things were winding down in the alley now. White clad men and women from CSI were setting up their gear ready to vacuum up any evidence. It was an exacting task but one they were adept at. She watched the sniffers and droids get underway then turned to the witness.

  “You Jones? They call you JJ?”

  “Some do. I guess you’re supposed to be the good cop, huh?”

  “I’m the bad cop,” she said with a fist full of his crotch.

  Jones’ eyes popped and he made to yell, but a gentle squeeze told him that it wasn’t a good idea. “You... can’t... do... this!” he gasped at the pressure she applied.

  “No?” she asked, squeezing his privates again. John nudged her and flicked his eyes up the alley to where some of the guys were starting to take an interest. She eased off. He was no fun.

  “Give me the name.”

  “I don’t... all right!” Jones hissed as she tweaked his privates again. “Anton.”

  “Anton who?”

  “Anton is all I know… come on! It’s all I know I swear on my mother!”

  “You don’t have a mother,” she said and let him go.

  “Bitch,” Jones hissed as he slid by her.

  “What was that?” She made to grab him and laughed when he took to his heels through the open door and back into the club.

  John shook his head in amusement. “Cappy is going to have a seizure.”

  “Nah, old JJ won’t make a complaint.”

  “Don’t be too sure, you got him where it hurts.”

  “Yeah I did didn’t I?” she said happily.

  “I don’t mean them!” John said with a snort of laughter. “I meant his pride.”

  “Oh.”

  They made their way back along the alley to the car. The street had pretty much returned to normal while they chatted with JJ. It was surprising how quickly people lost interest when the bodies left a scene.

  “So we have a first name for the missing guy, unless it’s a nickname, in which case we have nothing,” John said. “Any idea who he is?”

  “No, but I’ll get him.”

  “Confidence is good. Just how did you plan on finding him without a surname or murder weapon?

  Chris climbed into the car and was about to lay out her plan when they received another call. John raised an eyebrow and answered it. “This is Warner, what’s up?”

  “What’s up?” she whispered. “That’s hardly good radio procedure.”

  John flipped her off while they listened to the dispatcher.

  Possible homicide. Sutton Hotel, one-zero-two-four Greenwich Avenue. Officers on scene.

  “Five-Alison-twenty-three on route,” John said as Chris started the car. “Looks to be a busy day.”

  “Seems like,” she agreed and pulled into traffic. “You know, we might get somewhere with this Anton character by pulling Jacob in on it.”

  John turned to her with a frown. “Okay, what the hell are you up to now?”

  “Who me? I just thought that as he knows everyone around here he could help us out.”

  “Yeah, and what else? It wouldn’t have anything to do with that puppy he was leading around would it?”

  “Look, if Jacob chose Goodchilde to train, he must be something special.”

  John nodded grudgingly. “He does seem to know who to pick. You were one of his weren’t you?”

  “Yeah, he pulled me off traffic one day. He said he liked my look and needed some help. We worked together for two years. I swear I’ve never sweated so much in my life. He had me working beside him on every kind of case you can think of. I didn’t figure it out until later, but he was taking jobs no one else wanted just to give me experience—he took on stuff that must have bored him silly just to help me. I would really like to make a start on paying off what I owe him.”

  “And you think pulling him and Goodchilde into an open and shut homicide will do that?”

  “It’s a start, and it’s not open and shut until the case is closed,” she said a little defensively. “Besides, a homicide is a homicide. It will look really good on Goodchilde’s record.”

  John shrugged. “It’s okay by me, but you’ll have to get Cappy to sign off on it.”

  “I can handle Cappy. I’ll say that Jacob has unique knowledge vital to the case.”

  John snorted.

  She grinned. “I’ll fix everything.”

  What John didn’t know was that Cappy had worked with Jacob many years ago. They hadn’t been mentor and trainee. They had been partners.

  Chris pulled up outside the Sutton Hotel and shut off the motor. “You know, I’m getting a little tired of this place. Why can’t they kill people somewhere else for a change?”

  John snorted as he climbed out of the car. “I like it here.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Seriously,” he said as they entered the lobby. “Joseph and me go back quite a way. We do birthdays and everything!”

  Chris eyed him uncertainly. “You’re shitting me, right?”

  “Would I do that?”

  Joseph Sollis was the manager of the Sutton Hotel. He was talking to the uniforms when he saw John. He raised a hand, “Hey John! How’s it going?”

  “Good Joseph, and you?”

  “Not so good my friend. You heard?”

  “Yeah,” John said grinning at Chris’ stunned expression. “That’s why we’re here.”

  She shook off her surprise. “What have we got?”

  “Dead hooker,” Officer Chaney said.

  “Hey!” Joseph said in outrage. “She had a name you know!”

  Chaney had the decency to look embarrassed. He was new on the job. Chris turned her attention to the manager. He was a clean-shaven, balding white male approximately forty to forty-five years of age. He was wearing a shirt and tie with a sweater and no jacket.

  Chris indicated that John should begin recording and he nodded he was ready. “How well did you know her?”

  Joseph’s eyes narrowed. “I knew her, but not the way you mean. I’m very married and happy about it.” He turned to John. “Where the hell did you pick her up?”

  “Around. Answer her questions Joseph. She doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  “That’s right. I don’t,” she said, getting ready to be angry.

  “I knew her pretty well,” Joseph said grudgingly. “She was a regular. I know all my guests.”

  “Her name?”

  “Jenny Lovett. She came in with her man at around three last night.”

  “Describe him.”

  Joseph shrugged. “Just a guy. White, pretty tall I guess—”

  “How tall? As big as Chaney?” Chris said.

  “Nah bigger. About your size, John.”

  John nodded. “Six-two. Build?”

  “Muscular. Brown hair kinda curly and almost to his shoulders. He hadn’t shaved, but it wasn’t a beard, just stubble. There was something off with him. I noticed it when they came in. Usually the guys hang back as if they’re embarrassed to be paying a lot lizard, you know what I mean? Not this guy. He was different.”

  Chris frowned. “Different like how?”


  “Like how he stood behind Jenny, kind of hovering over her. It was as if he thought she might get away or something. She wasn’t scared,” he hastened to add. “It was business as usual as far as she was concerned.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure!” Joseph said hotly. “You don’t think I’d let her go up with a guy if I thought he’d hurt her do you?”

  “I don’t know what you would do. There are all kinds of hurting.”

  Joseph fumed.

  John stepped into the silence. “Anything else you remember?”

  “Yeah, there was something wrong with his eyes. They were too pale, almost colourless. You know them people who are all white?”

  “Albinos?”

  “That’s it. His eyes were like that, and he was pale, but his hair was brown so he couldn’t have been one could he? I mean not like that guy… you know the Ghost that everyone’s talking about? Shit, it couldn’t have been him could it?”

  Chris glanced sideways at John and he nodded. “Did you hear a name?”

  Joseph shook his head. “He didn’t speak.”

  “Did you see him leave?” she asked intently.

  “Yeah. It was around four. I know because I was watching some vid and the news was on.”

  “Didn’t you think it was odd when she didn’t come down?”

  “Why would I? They don’t always leave together. Sometimes they stay the night. It depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “On how much the guy paid I guess. Look, I don’t ask the details. I don’t want to know the details!”

  She snorted. “Okay. I guess that’s enough to start with. Officer Chaney will take your statement again.” She turned to Chaney. “Make sure he signs it, and do the seal up right. I want no mistakes on this one. Got me?”

  Chaney wasn’t upset with her extra instructions. He had caught the Ghost reference. “I don’t make mistakes on the job. Ever.”

  She nodded. “Let’s go see Jenny.”

  “Right,” John agreed.

  They called the elevator and rode it up to the third floor. The apartment was already the centre of attention when they entered. Forensics was already doing its thing and the photographers were busy documenting every inch of the scene. As usual, there were many more people hanging around than was strictly necessary.

  “All right! Who was first on scene?” Chris yelled taking charge.

  “I was,” a voice called from another room.

  She followed pointing fingers into the bedroom and a scene out of nightmares. Blood had splashed over the walls and the carpet was sodden with it. She clamped her jaw shut and fought not to toss her cookies.

  “It’s him,” John hissed under his breath. “The albino thing, the eyes. It’s him.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  One of the police officers in the room approached her. Officer Dwight Fiscus was a veteran. He had seen all there was to see both off and on the streets, yet this one had even him spooked. He looked a little white around the gills as he squelched his way across the carpet toward them.

  “Who called you in?” Chris said.

  “The manager. He said one of his employees, a guy named Tim Granger, came up to check on one of the regular hookers they get in here named Jenny Lovett around half eight this morning. When she didn’t answer he used his master key to get in.”

  Chris dug at the carpet experimentally with the toe of her boot. It squished. The blood hadn’t dried yet, and that told her the time was probably about right. The forensics people would have to verify to be certain, but so far she couldn’t fault what they’d been told.

  “What does Granger do for Joseph?”

  “Security,” John said before Officer Fiscus could answer. “Joseph has a couple of guys to keep an eye on his regular guests. If you know what I mean?”

  Chris did. Joseph might seem an okay kind of guy, but when it came right down to it, his hotel was just a flophouse used as a brothel. He had Tim to keep the girls and himself from being ripped off. Why John had let himself become friendly with Joseph Sollis she would never know.

  “Where’s Granger now?”

  “Downstairs making his statement,” Officer Fiscus said.

  “Okay, let’s have a look at her.”

  Chris stepped up to the bed. She kept her eyes locked on the headboard. Only reluctantly did she lower her gaze until she saw the... thing that had been Jenny Lovett.

  “Holy goddess,” John hissed in shock. “Merciful goddess, bless us and hold us safe from evil.”

  “Fuckin A,” Chris said faintly. “Are you telling me no one heard anything—no one?”

  “Not a thing,” Officer Fiscus said.

  John shuffled his feet as if they wanted to take him far away from here. “She’s number eight, she must be. I’ll call Raz.”

  “Yeah,” she said faintly.

  John left the room to make the call. Something he could have done right here, but she didn’t blame him for wanting an excuse to get out. She wanted one too, but Jenny needed her.

  The albino thing was too much of a coincidence for it not to be the Ghost, but the blood all over the place here and wasted—from a vampire’s point of view—made little sense. The blood suckers needed it; why waste it this way? And what about the hair thing? Maybe he dyed it brown to throw off pursuit. If so, he needed bigger changes in his MO than just hair colour. If he was getting nervous, why kill Jenny like this and put himself firmly back in her sights as the Ghost? It didn’t make a lot of sense.

  As with most serial killers, this one rated a task force and Cappy had put her in charge of it. John remained, as always, her partner and an invaluable aide. Raz and his partner Matt Silvis were the third and fourth part of their little task force quartet. They all had other cases to run, like this morning’s murders of Slick Willie and Whitey, but Jenny Lovett and the other victims of the so-called South Central Ghost took precedence. On the Chief’s orders, she could ask for any kind of assistance and it would be forthcoming. The media had lit a fire under the Mayor’s butt and he in turn had lit one under the Chief to make it happen. It was frustrating as hell, but without a suspect, she couldn’t begin to make use of the Chief’s generosity. She had unlimited resources and it didn’t mean squat.

  “She had to be dead before he did it right?” Fiscus said. “I mean, she had to be dead, right?”

  “Goddess I hope so,” she said, hating the doubt Fiscus had just managed to stir in her brain.

  “Yeah.”

  She pulled her eyes away from what was left of Jenny Lovett to study the walls. The sick bastard had tortured and killed eight women in the past three weeks. He always left a message of some kind as his calling card. This time he had painted the walls with Jenny’s blood. Chris had never seen graffiti anything like this, and she hoped she never saw it again.

  “Could be he’s trying to prophecy or something. Maybe he used the blood in a ritual. He’s never done it before though.”

  Fiscus paled further. “You don’t think he’s magi—”

  “No,” Chris snapped, cutting him off before he could say it. “Absolutely not, and I better not suddenly hear that making the rounds at Central either.”

  Fiscus acknowledged the threat with a grimace. If even a rumour of magi involvement came to light, her investigation would come under White Council scrutiny. The council of magicians would land on her like a mountain, and with them the Feds. She would lose the case for a certainty, but more than that, her career could come to an abrupt end just for hinting at magi involvement, or letting others hint at it. It was a bloody miracle that the Feds hadn’t already taken the case. She frowned, not for the first time wondering why they hadn’t. Serials like the Ghost attracted Feds like flies to shit.

  “Her head was on the dressing table over here,” Fiscus said pointing at a puddle of blood. “We put it back with the rest of her after the photographers were done. It seemed the right thing.”

  “That’s
okay,” she reassured him. “I couldn’t have left it there either.”

  She studied the mirror hardly recognising the pale and haunted reflection as herself. She looked terrible. “Was she… I mean was it… the head looking at the mirror?”

  “Yeah. What does it mean?”

  “Vanity maybe. I don’t know. This is my third headless corpse today.”

  “No shit?”

  “Nope.”

  “Could it be related?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Chris would have escaped the bedroom then, but John chose that moment to come back in.

  “Raz is on his way up,” he said as he entered. “He was downstairs talking with Joseph.”

  She waved a hand at the walls. “This stuff is pretty freaky. Do you recognise it?”

  “No, do you?”

  “I think he might fancy himself as some kind of poet.”

  “I wouldn’t know—”

  “I would,” Raz said as he entered. “And he’s no poet. The sick prick is just some kind of nut that gets off on tearing the throats out of women and taunting us. When I find him, I’m going to make him have a chat with my stunner on max.”

  “You can have him after I’m done,” Chris said. “I get first crack at him.”

  Raz frowned. “How do you figure?”

  “I rank you.”

  “Only by a couple of weeks,” Raz protested.

  “A couple of weeks or a couple of days, it’s all the same. I rank you so I get first crack.”

  John shook his head. “We’ve got to find the sonofabitch first.”

  Raz held up a vid camera. “Yeah, about that. I want some pictures of the walls. I know some people who might recognise some of this stuff.”

  “Do you recognise it?” Chris stressed.

  “Kind of. I think it might be based on the Book of Revelations. It’s part of the Christo holy book, you know the Bible?”

  Chris shook her head. “If you say so. How does that help us?”