Wolves

by Cary J. Griffith

  “How?”

  “Well,” Dean thought, trying to remember. “I’d seen him just a few days prior. He had his camo coveralls. Boots. Socks. The same damn outfit he was wearing the night of the accident. Even the back half of his orange hunting cap was there, what was left of it,” Dean added. “And his wallet. And there was that cannon of a shotgun.”

  “That’s it?”

  “We all knew him,” the Sheriff explained. “It only took a glance from all of us. Smith Garnes and Susan. That Club. It was Williston.”

  “So it was identification by physical appearance?”

  “What other kind is there?”

  “DNA. Fingerprints.”

  Dean chuckled. “This is Vermilion Falls, not Denver. If we know something for certain we don’t spend extra dollars we don’t have to verify what we already know. It was Williston.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said, thoughtful about it. “Thanks. I’ll be over in a bit,” he added.

  “See you when you get here,” the Sheriff said, and rang off.

  Sam placed the post-it pad and the black pen into his coat pocket. Then he pulled on his mittens, opened the car door and started running up the path toward the grave.

  At the gravesite he glanced back to the cemetery gates. He was alone, and would be, for a few more minutes. Then he took one careful step from the frozen dirt edge, and dropped into the old man’s grave.

  He scrambled to the casket’s side and wasted little time swinging open the lid. He wasn’t prepared for the heavy mound of gauze covering the old man’s head, making him look like some kind of space alien. He hadn’t thought about the head being covered. He tried to focus on examining the rest of him.

  He needed something from the old man. He tried to understand it, the massive lump lying in front of him, exposed to the winter cold. His body had changed, grown larger, Sam guessed because of age. But the Sheriff said he’d clearly recognized him. He peered at it.

  The hands were folded over the lower chest. They were pale and large, similar to what he remembered about the old man, but something not quite right. Maybe it was puffiness from the way he died, Sam thought. Maybe it was over four days with the life gone out of them. It had been 20 years. Sam could see the old man’s belly. There were several more inches to it, what could be expected, given 20 years of indulgence. The belly looked a lot like the rest of him. Puffy.

  But these didn’t look like the hands with which Sam had been painfully familiar.

  He reached into his pocket, pulled out the pen, and levered it under the frozen hands, trying to lift them. They were stuck together, unyielding. He applied more pressure, and a thumb pried slowly into the air, pulled away from the other thumb, as though it was some kind of malleable metal.

  The thumbs were thick and wide. They didn’t look like the old man’s hands. Could be. It had been a long time, Sam thought again. A lot changes in two decades. People get old, gain weight.

  He bent down over the corpse and tried to pry up the hands, to have a better look. He pulled off his mittens. He needed the dexterity as long as he could maintain it in this cold. As soon as he touched the corpse’s hands their clammy foreignness made him shudder. He held onto them, trying to pry them up. His own hands were biting with the cold. He lost his grip and the hands snapped back into their frozen position, centered over the old man’s chest.

  He reached down again, gripping the icy appendages as though they were stumps of frozen meat. He lifted with his back, putting his entire body into it. The hands rose begrudgingly from the chest. The left hand came away slowly, starting to rise from the body. He could feel its frigid meatiness raise a few inches and then hold there. It was like bending lead. He loosened his grip and the hand stayed in the air, poised as though it were starting to extend itself in permanent greeting.

  Sam glanced up over the lip of the grave. He was still alone. Then he looked back at the hand.

  With the same painful lifting he managed to hoist the right arm into the air. It hung aloft. Now both hands were lifting up to the sky. When Sam bent the right arm up, the corpse’s shirt sleeve slid down the raised wrist. It was turned so Sam could barely see its white underside. He remembered the wrist. He recalled the ragged scar where the skin was now clear.

  He examined it closely, to be sure. No scar. Then he reached down, took his felt tipped pen, and began scrolling its tip over the dead man’s right thumb, then his left. He took the post-it pack and used it to press against one thumb, then the other. He examined the tablet. Two good clear prints. The Sheriff could run them for him. Sam didn’t know who it was, but he didn’t think it was Williston Winthrop.

  And then he heard the far off drone of a truck, slowing before its turn from the highway through the cemetery gates.

  Sam stood up. His own exposed hands were numbing. Christ, he thought, carefully putting the post-it notes in his coat’s breast pocket, with the pen, struggling to get into his mittens. Then he slammed the lid and hurried out of the grave, glancing back long enough to make sure there was nothing amiss. He lurched down the hillside, his two partially covered hands frozen in the biting cold. They were beginning to ache, but he barely noticed, remembering the corpse’s hands raised in a kind of greeting, a shy wave, a dead reckoning.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  February 1st, evening—Vermilion County Sheriff’s Office

  The Sheriff let him in.

  The drive from the cemetery had partially warmed Sam, but his hands were only just starting to thaw. Ever since touching the corpse he’d wanted to wash them.

  He excused himself and walked across the hall to the restroom. He used plenty of soap and water. The warm water made his fists ache. He pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and looked up. His beard formed a dark shadow across his cheeks and down the front of his neck. His face appeared leaner than he’d seen it in awhile. But his eyes, he thought... He looked like a bum, but his eyes were filled with clear intensity.

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” the Sheriff said when Sam came into his office.

  Sam glanced over and nodded to Smith Garnes, working the night desk. Garnes nodded back.

  “To tell you the truth, Sheriff, I’m not sure Angus Moon went back to his place.” Sam had thought about it. He thought he had an idea where Moon might have gone. And the others.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Just a hunch, really.” He opened his coat, unzipped the small inside breast pocket and carefully extracted the two post-it notes with thumbprints.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m wondering if you can do me a favor?”

  The Sheriff glanced down at the small squares of paper. He could see they were prints.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “I’m wondering if we can run these two prints?”

  He could feel Smith Garnes look up from his paperwork.

  “Where in the hell did they come from?”

  Sam paused. “I’d rather not say, just yet. I’m just wondering if we can run them. I think they’re important.”

  Judging from the recognition in the Sheriff’s eyes, Sam thought he suspected their origin.

  “It’ll take a while to get results,” the Sheriff warned.

  “Not from Ashland. Saturday nights they have a skeleton crew that’s always working leftovers. You give them something live and they’re on it like a pack of jackals.”

  “Just so I understand,” the Sheriff said. “You want to copy these prints, fax them into Ashland and have those guys run them?”

  “First I think we should try and enlarge them. Can your copier enlarge?”

  The Sheriff knew it made sense, might work. “Smith,” he said, glancing over to his deputy. “Fire up the copier.” Dean Goddard picked up one of the post-its and considered it. “It’ll take us a minute to copy and enlarge it. You have their fax?�
� he asked.

  “I’ll call them.”

  The mechanics of getting the prints ready for faxing took a little time. “Needs to warm up,” Smith said, standing over the corner machine.

  Sam used the couple minutes to phone Ashland and tell them what was coming. As he suspected, they appreciated the idea of working on something fresh. After the copier warmed up Sam placed one of the notes on the clean plate of glass. He used the copier’s console to increase the size 100 percent. Then he pushed copy and the bright scan made three passes.

  “It’s slow, but has excellent resolution,” Dean said.

  And so it did. When the sheet came out it displayed a very clear print. Sam copied the other print, took the two sheets out of the copier, and walked over to the office fax. It, too, was a little old, took some time to warm up. The Ashland office was waiting for the prints. He fed in the pages and heard the fax dial, then the tone pickup, and twenty seconds later the verification page printed out.

  They sat and waited. Sam told the Sheriff about seeing Bill Grebs buy liquor at Lindy’s Tap.

  “It happens,” the Sheriff said, shaking his head. “Harder than hell to catch something like that. And I’m not sure it’s the best use of our resources.”

  “I’m not filing a complaint. But he bought about five bottles, including the two bottles of Canadian whiskey, the old man’s favorite.”

  The Sheriff wondered about it, but only shrugged.

  “I think they were going to party tonight. Did I ever tell you, Sheriff, how that Club built a cabin in the middle of Skinwalker’s Bog?”

  “Skinwalker’s Bog?” he asked, doubtfully. “Nobody goes into Skinwalker’s.”

  “Think it’s haunted?”

  “Hardly. A mosquito-infested swamp, more like it. Takes twenty minutes to hike twenty feet. I suppose,” Dean said, looking at Sam Rivers, “they first turn into weasels, so they get in through game trails?”

  There was a snicker from Smith Garnes over at his desk.

  “They figured out a couple entrances down off two logging roads that border the place,” Sam said.

  “So you think they’re partying out there tonight?”

  “I think so.”

  “And you know how to get there?”

  “I don’t. But I think Diane Talbott might.”

  “How in the hell would she know?”

  “I told her about it the other night and she said she’d been down one of those roads, looking for some rare bog flowers. Not exactly flowers, but orchids.”

  “Orchids?” The Sheriff thought the story was getting more bizarre.

  “There are some rare orchids out there, Chief,” Smith Garnes chimed in.

  “Don’t tell me you’re an orchid hunter, Smith?”

  Smith looked thoughtful for a minute. “Not Skinwalker’s. Like you said, it’s too damn dense. But I’ll go over to the SNA bog near Pine Mountain,” he said. “Different times of the year.”

  “Imagine that,” the Sheriff said.

  “They’re somethin‘ to see,” Smith Garnes said, defending himself.

  “They are,” Sam agreed. “Beautiful, exotic plants. Right here in Minnesota.”

  “So Talbott found the cabin?”

  “Not the cabin. Just quite a ways down the overgrown logging road she found a place where it looked like some cars had parked, more than a couple times. And beyond it, the other side of some bushes, there was the start of a narrow trail.”

  “And you think that’s the trail to the Club’s cabin?”

  “One of them.”

  “Why in the hell would they go all the way out there when they could just drive to one of their houses?”

  Before Sam could answer, the phone rang. The Sheriff picked up. “Sheriff Dean Goddard.”

  He was sitting at his desk, listening to the voice on the other end of the line. “Yessir,” Goddard said. “He’s right here.” He glanced over at Sam.

  Sam stood, ready to take the phone. But the Sheriff kept listening.

  “Uh-huh,” the Sheriff said. He looked across his desk for a clean sheet of paper. He found a pad and picked up a pen. His brow turned quizzical. “Uh-huh,” the Sheriff said. “Just a minute.” He tucked the phone under his chin, holding it against his shoulder. He readied himself for writing.

  “James T. Beauregard,” he said. “Biloxi?”

  He wrote them on the notepad. Underlined them. He recognized the name. “You know, that’s damn curious,” he said.

  Sam Rivers and Smith Garnes watched him. If that was the person in the grave Sam Rivers had never heard of him. They watched the Sheriff look across the papers on the desk. He shuffled through several, looking for the paper he’d jotted notes on just that morning. When he found it he read the paper and said into the phone, “I had a call about that guy just this morning.”

  The person on the other end said something. Dean thanked him, told him Sam Rivers appreciated his efforts, and hung up.

  “Who?” Sam asked.

  “James T. Beauregard. From Biloxi, Mississippi. He stole a car few years back, got him printed. Served some time. Not much. Want to tell me where you got these prints?”

  “I think we need to speak with the Coroner.” Sam was careful not to say her name, letting him know it was official.

  When he shared the reason why, Dean Goddard said, “I was afraid you were going to say that.” From the side desk, Smith Garnes took it in fast, knew what it meant.

  Then the Sheriff made the call. “Susan,” he said. “Can you come down here?”

  By 9:00 p.m. Dr. Susan Wallace, Smith Garnes and Sam Rivers were assembled in Dean’s office. Dr. Wallace verified there was nothing but circumstantial evidence that had confirmed the identification of Williston Winthrop. Because of its location, clothes, the victim’s wallet, and other identifying characteristics, and because they all knew Williston Winthrop, and knew the body before them was clearly that man, the Coroner decided further identification—like a print or DNA analysis—was a waste of time and money. Now if they wanted to find out for certain, they’d have to exhume it.

  The Sheriff’s legal pad contained a brief description of James T. “Jimbo” Beauregard, one he’d jotted down from the morning’s conversation with Clement. It bore similarities to Williston Winthrop, except for a prominent birthmark on the face. But he hadn’t been that particular taking down more details. They’d have to call Clement. But when they tried they only received her voicemail. The Sheriff left his number and asked her to call him. So it sounded like Clement’s brother was probably dead. Which meant Williston could still be alive. And they knew where they might find him.

  The Sheriff liked Sam Rivers’s idea of surprise, which is why he asked two more deputies and Steve Svegman to join him at his office. He told them all to bring their weapons and to dress for a hike through frozen woods. One of the deputies was out on patrol. The Sheriff radioed him and told him to come in.

  Sam Rivers called Diane and brought her up on current events. He suggested she might want to come along, and the Sheriff didn’t protest. This would be good press for Sheriff Dean Goddard and he knew he’d need all the good press he could get, soon enough.

  Sam asked Diane to bring over the duffle with his gun and night hunting garb, absent the money. When Diane arrived she brought it into the Sheriff’s office. Sam extracted the ten gauge pieces from the bag.

  “Where in the hell did you get that?” the Sheriff asked, recognizing the gun.

  “It was a present.”

  “That’s the same gun that killed whoever the hell’s in that grave.”

  “Just like it,” Sam said. “This one was promised to me when I was a kid. Then the old man changed his mind, so I took it and hid it before I left.”

  Dean thought of Miriam Samuelson’s place. “In your mother’s house?”

 
“That’s right.”

  The Sheriff smiled. “I remember Williston mentioning there was another one of those. That it had been stolen and he was going to get it back.”

  “Not stolen,” Sam asserted. “Just hidden someplace safe and reclaimed.” Sam took the gun stock in hand. The solid walnut was heavy and large. He affixed it to the barrel. He screwed down the other pieces and raised the shotgun to his shoulder, aiming down the blackened double barrel. He was surprised by its heft, less substantial than he remembered. He’d added a few years since he’d held the gun. It had been a lifetime. If Sam Rivers’s childhood had trained him for anything, it was to hunt predators, whether in Skinwalker’s Bog, the Jakarta pet market or the Florida Keys. Sam Rivers was made for this role. He’d have to tell Kay Magdalen.

  He didn’t know what they might walk into, but he knew he had to be armed when they did. Besides, there were wolves in those woods, and hybrids, at least one or more raised by Angus Moon, if he was right. He wasn’t sure what they might do when confronted. In almost all known instances, normal wolves would turn at the sight of man and disappear into woods. But hybrids who had lived with men, who had endured a man like Angus and then ran wild, would be different. Sam couldn’t imagine them turning and running. They might feel what he did and have a hunger to set things right. It wasn’t revenge, exactly, just a sense of how things should be and the power to make things right.

  He put on his camouflaged, insulated fatigues. When Diane came into the room, bundled up tight as a mummy, she looked at Sam and smiled.

  “You look like special ops.”

  “Special Agent, USFW.”

  By the time Svegman arrived they were prepared for their expedition. It was going to be a ride and hike, the Sheriff informed them. Probably at least a couple miles. Dr. Susan Wallace would stay behind and provide radio support from the Sheriff’s office, in case they needed help. They were headed into Skinwalker’s Bog.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  February 2nd, just after midnight—the cabin in Skinwalker’s Bog