Jasper Lilla and The Wolves of Banner Elk

by C. S. Thompson

  “I tell you what, Jasper,” he whispered near my right ear. “If you’ll agree to answer my questions, I’ll get off your chest.” He moved his head around to look into my eyes. “Nod if you agree.”

  I nodded slowly.

  He got off me, but he didn’t let go of my shirt. “I need to know what’s on that computer, and you’re going to tell me.”

  Letting go of my shirt, he sat on the ground next to me. He shifted the gun from his right hand to his left, then he laid his right hand on the middle of my chest. He didn’t press down, but just the weight of his hand hurt while I struggled to breathe.

  “What have we here?” He was holding the wolf’s tooth. Without warning he violently pulled at it. He was trying to break the strap, but instead he jerked my head forward, causing me to scream out again. I was in so much pain that I hardly felt him tug the necklace up over my head.

  I don’t know how long I cried, but as I did he sat next to me and quietly played with my necklace. When my crying started to slow down, he laid the gun down, shifted the necklace from his right to his left hand, then with his right hand he slapped me. It was a hard slap with the back of his hand.

  The slap spun my head away from him, and as it did I rolled away, too. As I rolled a second time he scrambled to his feet. I had only managed to get a few feet from him by the time he was over the top of me again, lifting me up by my shirt. I hung there in his grip, balancing on my toes.

  “Do you think I’m playing around here?” he snarled through clinched teeth.

  After he threw me backward he turned to where he had left the gun. What he saw next made him freeze. There, in the middle of the path, standing directly over the gun, was the white wolf. It was just standing there, watching us. Watching him.

  The fool took a half step toward his gun. The white wolf didn’t move, nor did he make a sound, but he lowered his head slightly and bared his teeth.

  Benjamin froze in mid-crouch. The white wolf remained where he was, watching as Benjamin reversed his step. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but it looked like the wolf was going to let Benjamin walk backward one step at a time. It took everything I had in me to roll enough to get my leg out and up enough to trip him.

  He screamed like a little girl as he flailed. In one motion he hit the ground, rolled, bounced up, and began sprinting back up the path away from the Rock Table. The high-pitched screaming continued until he was out of sight.

  I never heard the other wolves come. My focus was up the path watching Benjamin. I didn’t know there were other wolves until they ran past me. There were two wolves that went by, both brown with black spots. They didn’t seem to hurry at all as they loped after Benjamin as he sprinted away.

  I watched from where I was, lying on my back on the side of the path. When they were out of sight I rested my head against the ground and listened until I couldn’t hear anything anymore. I lay there for a while longer, thinking of nothing except breathing. My chest still hurt, but gradually I found a rhythm of breathing that at least hurt less. That’s when I sat up and noticed that the white wolf hadn’t moved. He had watched me the whole time.

  Our eyes locked for no more than a moment before he trotted toward me. I didn’t realize that I was holding my breath as he approached me until he trotted past me. As I watched him go by, I took a deep breath, and for the first time I noticed what he smelled like.

  Forty-Three

  Heading Home

  Considering how much it hurt to breathe, I expected that moving would be unbearable, but it wasn’t so bad. I was too stiff to move very fast, but I managed to get to my feet and back to my car. I stooped to pick up the gun. That hurt. I also grabbed the backpack Benjamin had left on the picnic table, but I didn’t have to stoop for that.

  There were four messages waiting for me when I took my phone out of my back pocket. I hadn’t felt it vibrate, but that didn’t surprise me. Three of the messages were from Carol. The fourth was from Riley. I listened to the one from Riley first. She said Carol was looking for me. I listened to the most recent message from Carol, but I pretty much knew what it would be.

  “Jasper.” It was her scolding voice. “Where are you? Wally says you left an hour and a half ago. Call me . . . now.”

  I called her.

  “Where are you?” That’s how she answered the phone.

  “I’m in my car. I’m headed home right now.”

  “Are you okay? You don’t sound okay.”

  “I’m just out of breath.”

  “What are you not telling me, Jasper?”

  “I’m not not telling you anything. But I’ve got a lot to tell you when I get home. Is Mom back?”

  “She’s on her way from the airport now. She might get here before you do.”

  * * *

  They were all in the kitchen sitting around the table when I got there. Whatever they were talking about before I opened the door stopped. Mom and Aunt Maggie just looked at me like it was my turn to say something. Wally looked at me like he was worried.

  If I was in trouble with anyone it was Carol, but I knew that would pass as soon as I told them what happened. On the drive home I had decided to start by saying, “You’ll never guess what happened to me today,” but I never got the chance. While I was surveying the expressions on their faces, Kitty was circling around me. I never saw her until she jumped up with both paws on my chest.

  I screamed out in pain as I collapsed on the spot.

  Aunt Maggie was the first one to me. She took Kitty by the collar and dragged her off me. Luckily, Kitty hadn’t landed on top of me, but she was licking my face, making it hard to get up.

  Mom was the next to get to me. “Jasper, you’re hurt.” She stroked the left side of my face with her hand.

  “I’m okay,” I said.

  “No, you are not,” said Mom. “You just stay right there until I understand what’s going on with you.”

  The kitchen door opened, and I heard Aunt Maggie say, “Get going, you overgrown dust mop.”

  “He’s not breathing right,” said Carol. She was standing by my feet looking down at me.

  Mom kept looking at me. “Why aren’t you breathing right, Jasper?”

  “My chest hurts,” I said. “I heard something pop.”

  “He could have a broken rib,” said Carol immediately.

  “It could be separated,” added Wally.

  “It’s just separated,” I said.

  Mom smiled. Nothing fazes her. “You don’t know that. We’re going to get you to the ER for some X-rays.”

  “I’ll get the car,” announced Carol.

  “Wait,” I said weakly. I wriggled my hand down into my pocket for my car key. “My car’s in the way.”

  She took my key and left. She returned a moment later, holding the gun I had left on the front seat of my car. “What is this?” she demanded.

  Instinctively I looked at Mom. Whether I needed to or not, I always liked to get a read on Mom before I ventured into uncharted water.

  “Well?” Mom asked. Her right eyebrow was up.

  While I considered how to begin, Aunt Maggie handed me one of the couch pillows from the living room. “Let the boy tell his story in comfort. Whatever he’s been into, he’s here now.”

  Mom lifted my head and tucked the pillow behind it. As soon as I was settled back she said, “Talk.”

  “Dr. Dietrich didn’t commit suicide,” I began.

  “He was murdered,” Mom said, as if she’d known that all along.

  “Yeah. And I know who did it. It wasn’t Riley’s father. It was Mr. Benjamin.”

  “How do you know?” asked Wally.

  “I saw him. He poisoned him with a hypodermic needle.” I looked at Wally. “He used that purple stuff from your lab.”

  Wally nodded.

  “You saw him,” repeated Mom.

  “It was recorded on Dr. Dietrich’s laptop.”

  “You got in,” said Wally.

  “Yeah.”


  “‘Poindexter’ worked then,” said Carol.

  “Yeah.”

  “So there’s proof,” said Mom.

  “Yeah, but I don’t know where that laptop is now.” I had everyone’s full attention. “I tried to bring it home, but the security guys stopped me. I thought it was one of them that did it, but I was wrong. It was Mr. Benjamin.”

  “Wait a minute, Jay. I thought you saw who did it,” said Mom.

  “I saw him do it, but I didn’t see that it was him.” By the looks on their faces I could tell I needed to say more. “His face wasn’t in the picture, but I saw it happen. I didn’t figure out who it was until later.”

  “Go on,” said Mom.

  “Like I said, I thought it was the security guys. They had the laptop and all. So I was headed home, and Mr. Benjamin called me and asked me to meet him at the Rock Table.”

  “The Rock Table?” asked Carol.

  “It’s a little shelter on the back side of the Lion property,” I explained. “He said it was important, so I went back to meet him. He figured out that I saw the movie on the laptop, so he tried to get me to drink a grape soda with that purple poison in it.”

  For the first time I could see worry on my mother’s face.

  “I didn’t drink it. I could smell what was in it.”

  “Thank God for that nose,” said Mom, touching my nose with her fingertip.

  “What about the gun?” asked Carol.

  “Give the boy time,” Aunt Maggie told her again.

  “When I threw the poison away, he pointed the gun at me. I was able to knock it out of his hand, but when I ran I tripped.”

  “That’s how you hurt your ribs,” said Carol.

  “No, I hurt my ribs when he dropped on top of me with his knee. That’s when I heard the pop.”

  “He didn’t shoot you,” said Wally.

  Everyone looked at him.

  “Does he look shot?” asked Carol, the way only a mom or a wife could.

  “How did you get away?” asked Wally, ignoring the looks.

  “The white wolf came.”

  Mom studied my face. I think she was deciding if I was crazy or not. “Where’s Benjamin now?” she asked.

  “The last I saw of him he was running for his life.”

  “Good,” said Aunt Maggie.

  “The white wolf again, huh?” said Carol.

  “Yeah, I used the—” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I reached for the wolf’s-tooth necklace and remembered that it was gone. “It’s gone,” I said, just before the tears flooded out of me.

  Forty-Four

  Recuperation

  Wally was right. It wasn’t a broken rib. It was separated ribs. Two of them. Both on the left side. “It’ll be tender,” the doctor told my mother, “but he’s okay to go to school.”

  Thanks, doc.

  I did get a pass on chores for the weekend. I watched all the Harry Potter movies and played a lot of Call of Duty. Aunt Maggie made another apple pie, and Mom got a large From Russia with Love pizza from Capone’s. It’s an unusual pizza with Alfredo sauce, polish sausage, bacon, and pepper-jack cheese. Everyone likes it.

  Riley and her dad went to a cousin’s wedding in New Jersey, so I didn’t see her all weekend. I was king-for-the-day all weekend, but Mom was headed out of town on Monday, and Aunt Maggie warned me that “the vacation’s over.”

  The vacation wasn’t over, though. When Mom ordered pizza from Capone’s, Carol took my car to pick it up. When she returned, she brought in Benjamin’s leather backpack. I had forgotten I threw it in the back seat of my car. We opened it after dinner. Dr. Dietrich’s laptop was inside.

  “Let’s watch,” I said as I lunged to retrieve it from the backpack. The move took my breath in mid-sentence.

  “Slow down, cowboy,” said Carol. “We can do it.”

  We watched it twice. Actually they watched it twice while I watched them watch it.

  “That goes to the police first thing tomorrow morning,” declared Mom as she closed the laptop. “We don’t want our dinner to get any colder.”

  While we ate we watched Dad’s favorite old movie, The Bank Dick, with W. C. Fields. After we finished the movie I asked, “Should we call Mrs. Dietrich?”

  Mom said, “Absolutely not. She doesn’t need to see that.”

  Carol backhanded my right arm.

  I immediately grabbed my ribs. “Owwwww.”

  She just backhanded me again, which made me laugh, which made me grab my ribs for real and moan, “Aaaaaa.”

  “We do have to call the police,” said Wally. “But not until I get to look for his research files.”

  The mention of the police put a serious cloud back over us. Mom told the ER doc that I got hurt when I fell in the woods. That was kind of true. But it wasn’t true. “We can’t explain how you got saved by a great white wolf and his merry men, can we?” is what she said on the way home. I assumed we hadn’t talked about talking to the police for the same reason. I was the witness of the murder of one man and possibly the death of another, so reporting to the police would have been a normal thing to do. They’d witness Dr. Dietrich’s murder themselves when they had his laptop. Benjamin’s death, if he was dead, was different.

  I imagined the conversation: “The last time I saw Mr. Benjamin he was being pursued by several wolves under the direction of a white wolf who I summoned forth with this magical wolf’s-tooth necklace I no longer have.”

  No. That wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have. And I didn’t have to have it. I don’t know how Mom fixed it, but after Wally transferred Dr. Dietrich’s research files to his own computer, the police came and got his laptop. I know Mom had to tell them something about how they got it, but I took a don’t-ask approach.

  Wally spent all day Sunday at his lab. He wanted to go there Saturday night, but Carol wouldn’t let him. When he came home Sunday evening, he said, “I’m going to need Jasper on Monday.”

  I was willing to make the sacrifice. You know, for the good of the team.

  * * *

  The first thing I did Monday morning when I got to Lion Pharmaceuticals was go to Leona’s office. I was sure she already knew I was hurt, because she’s who Mom had “looking out for me,” but I figured she should hear from me that I was okay. Mostly I wanted to find out what I could about Benjamin.

  When I got to the HR department, she and Dixie were standing in front of Benjamin’s door, looking in.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  They both jumped.

  “Why aren’t you in school?” asked Leona after letting go of her chest.

  Dixie was still holding hers.

  “Wally and I have something big going on in the lab today. What’s going on here?”

  “Someone really trashed Mr. B’s office over the weekend, and we can’t get him on the phone,” said Dixie.

  “Security’s looking for him, but Aiden took one look through the door and told us to call the police. They’re on the way. They said, ‘Don’t touch anything, and don’t let anyone go in.’”

  “Wow,” I said. I wasn’t surprised at all, but I for sure did not want to be there when the police came.

  “Dr. Beery said you’d be off the rest of the week,” said Leona, eyeing me. “Are you okay?”

  As if you didn’t know, I thought. “I’ve got two separated ribs.”

  “What happened to the other guy?” asked Dixie with a big smile. “Is he dead?”

  I felt my head jump back. I felt like one of those cartoon characters whose eyes suddenly shoot out of their face. I must have looked like it, too, because both of them looked at me like I just cut off my arm.

  “Are you okay?” asked Leona.

  “Is it your ribs?” asked Dixie.

  I’m glad Dixie asked that. I held my ribs and said, “Yeah. Sometimes if I twist just right, it hurts. I’m okay.”

  “Say,” Dixie said. “Susie Critcher in accounting told me who your mother is. That’s so cool.”

&nb
sp; “Who’s your mother?” asked Leona.

  Like you don’t know, I thought. “My mom’s Vernalisa Vanderguard.”

  “That’s nice,” she said without a shred of recognition that she knew who Mom was. She was that good.

  “We’ll see you next week,” she said as she went back to her desk.

  * * *

  By nine o’clock I was back at Wally’s lab.

  Although Monday was a day off from school, it wasn’t the vacation I had hoped for. It wasn’t what Wally had hoped for either. After reading Dr. Dietrich’s research, he got what he wanted me to smell narrowed down to just eight things. We were done in fifteen minutes.

  “Are you sure?” he asked me when I told him it was number 3.

  I was sure, but I ran through it all again. “Number 3.”

  “I was afraid of that,” he said.

  Apparently number 3 was something he had already experimented with in California. “It’s a dead end.”

  “At least you found another way that wouldn’t work,” I said. “Didn’t someone famous say that?”

  “Yeah,” said Wally. He didn’t look all cheered up or impressed by my comment. “Edison said that after he figured out the lightbulb.”

  Forty-Five

  ”King” Lyons

  “I hoped I’d find you here.”

  It was William “King” Lyons. He was standing in the doorway of the lab. “May I come in?”

  “Of course,” said Wally.

  Riley’s dad strolled into the lab, looking around like he had never seen it before. “Very nice,” he said. “I trust you have made all the alterations you need.”

  “I have,” said Wally. “Everyone has been very helpful.”

  “Good.” He nodded to himself as he scanned the room once more. “Mrs. Jennings tells me you’ll be out of work for the next week. Separated ribs, is it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How did that happen, Jasper?”

  “I was on a run in the woods and tripped.” It was kind of true.

  “Well, I hope you feel better real soon.” He took a phone out of his jacket pocket and handed it to me. “Maybe this will help.”