Watcher in the Woods: A Rockton Novel

by Kelley Armstrong

  “I know who she is,” I say.

  “She’s just wondering how you know what her screaming sounds like,” Dalton says.

  Sebastian’s face goes bright red. “Not that. I—”

  Dalton waves him to silence. The screaming has stopped, and now there’s just a general commotion in town. Running footsteps. Calls of “what’s going on?” And a man’s voice, his words indistinct as he shouts. That voice, though, is enough.

  “It’s Roy,” I say as we run.

  Dalton lets out a string of curses. We can see buildings ahead and the blur of people running.

  “Go around,” Dalton says. “He’s near Will’s place.”

  He keeps running straight. I slow. Sebastian slows with me, and I’m tempted to tell him to go, but there’s no time. I take the path circling town.

  “Stay back!” Roy shouts. His words are garbled. They aren’t slurred, as if he’s been drinking, but more like he’s talking with something in his mouth.

  “Stay the hell back!” he shouts. “Anyone—” I don’t catch the next few words. “—break this bitch’s neck—” More garble. “—thinks she can disrespect me? Turn down my good money?”

  “That would be her right.”

  Isabel’s voice rings out. “It is the right of every man and woman in this town to turn down any invitation to sex. That includes those who choose to profit from such interactions. You have just earned yourself a lifetime ban from the Roc. If you do not release Mindy in the next three seconds, that ban will extend to the Lion and to all alcohol . . .”

  Isabel trails off. As I jog, I see her through the trees. She’s been walking toward the house beside Will’s, the sparse crowd parting for her. Now she’s slowed and gone quiet, staring at something I can’t see.

  I pick up speed, and then I spot Roy on the front porch. He has Mindy strong-armed over the railing, bent forward, and when I see that, my hand goes straight for my gun. But that sexually threatening pose isn’t what stopped Isabel. It’s Roy himself. He’s naked. Completely naked, his pot belly jiggling as he bellows at Isabel. He’s put something in his hair, and it stands up at all angles. He’s shaved swaths from his beard, and blood drips from the mowed patches.

  Roy has Mindy bent over the railing, and as much as that position enrages me, he isn’t attempting to do what it looks like. If he was, I’d shoot him from here. Mindy is fully dressed, and he’s standing at her side, his hand forcing her neck against the railing. That’s still enough to run faster and pull my gun. And it’s enough for Isabel to resume striding toward them. It is also enough to have Dalton coming at a run, yelling, “Get your fucking hands off her!”

  “Holy shit,” Sebastian whispers behind me.

  I keep advancing through the forest. When I’m alongside the building, I motion for Sebastian to stay where he is. While I can no longer see what’s happening, I can hear it. Dalton is snarling at Roy. Anders has come from somewhere, and he’s calmly but firmly ordering Roy to release Mindy, with Isabel echoing it. Roy keeps shouting, his words making no sense.

  Once I’m at the rear porch, I hop onto the railing and then I climb to the bedroom balcony. The set-up is the same as our house, and I’ve used this route before to startle Dalton. I balance on the balcony railing, climb onto the roof, crouch and cross partway. Then I’m on my belly, slinking forward.

  When I near the edge, I see them below. Dalton is climbing onto the porch. He’s right there, and Roy doesn’t even seem to care. Roy’s shouting something while holding Mindy down with one hand, his other dropped down in front—and I’m pretty sure I know what he’s doing with it.

  “Let her go or—” Dalton begins.

  Mindy kicks. Roy has changed position, partly behind her, and when she kicks, the foot goes straight between his legs. He lets out a screech, but he doesn’t fall back, doesn’t let go, doesn’t even stop what he’s doing. She kicks again, harder, and then wrenches from his grip and falls on him, kicking and pummeling. Dalton grabs Roy by the hair and yanks him aside. Roy attacks Dalton, and I drop onto the porch.

  My assistance is not required. Roy is swinging his arms, flailing like a child as he smacks at Dalton, who simply grabs him by the arm and throws him down. Roy keeps fighting, and Dalton motions to me to take his arm. We switch places, and I twist Roy’s arm behind his back as Anders pins his kicking legs and Dalton crouches in front of Roy, telling him to stop fighting, that he’s only making it worse.

  Roy doesn’t care. He’s practically vibrating beneath me, and it reminds me of a time when I’d thrown down a suspect who was high as a kite. Some “under the influence” suspects make no effort to fight, just rant and yell. Others fight with preternatural strength. But this suspect had just flailed under me, a ball of adrenalin that she didn’t know how to use. Roy is securely pinned, but he keeps flopping like a fish on the bank. When he ignores Dalton’s orders to stop, I twist his arm. He doesn’t care. I push it up until sweat beads on his broad face, and he pants in pain, but the sensation doesn’t seem to register beyond that. I have to raise my voice to be heard over the sounds Roy makes—snarls and howls and grunts, as if we’re pinning a wild animal.

  “He’s not responding,” I say to Dalton. “We’re going to need—”

  “Excuse me,” a voice says, cutting through the clamor. “Excuse me.”

  April strides up the porch steps, syringe in hand.

  “This will stop—” she begins.

  “Thanks,” I say, taking it from her. I jab it into Roy’s upper arm. He doesn’t seem to feel it. He keeps flopping and flailing until he drops with one last gasp his eyes bulging, like that fish breathing his last. Then his head hits the porch with a thunk.

  I go to Mindy as Dalton and Anders handle Roy. The house here is empty, being used for storage, and I shuttle her inside, away from the crowd. She walks, stiff-legged. As the door closes behind us, the rear one opens, Isabel coming through.

  “He grabbed me,” Mindy says, as if still struggling to understand what just happened. “I was walking home after my shift, and he grabbed me right in the middle of the road. I didn’t have time to fight. I know how to fight, but I didn’t get a chance. He came up behind me, grabbed me by the hair and dragged me onto the porch.” Her eyes fill with tears of sudden rage. “That bastard. That son of a bitch. I told him no. Three times I told him, and I was polite about it, and I was discreet about it, and then he . . . he . . .”

  “He’s gone,” Isabel says. “Not just from the Roc. He is gone.”

  I shoot her a glare and then say to Mindy, “We’ll tell the council we want him removed from Rockton. I cannot promise that they’ll allow that, but we will insist. If they don’t listen, we’ll impose so many sanctions on him that he’ll beg us to leave.”

  I check her injuries—scalp abrasions and contusions—and as I do, I am reminded of how quickly an attack can happen. It doesn’t need to be a dark alley, facing four thugs. Grab someone midday, and by the time anyone can react, the situation has escalated to a point where interference becomes dangerous, and all the onlookers can do is shout for real help.

  With Roy being taken to the clinic, I don’t suggest Mindy go there. April can make a house call, while Mindy rests at Isabel’s.

  As Isabel takes Mindy out the back, I open the front door to find Anders and Dalton loading Roy onto a stretcher. April examines him.

  “He appears to be under the influence of an intoxicant or drug,” she says.

  “Huh.” Dalton looks down at Roy, naked, hair on end, beard half-shaven. “You think?”

  Anders suppresses a snicker.

  “I’ll go search his rooms,” I say. “See what he took.”

  Dalton nods, “I’ll meet you there. After I lug this idiot to the clinic. We may drop him a few times. He’s kinda heavy.”

  “Drop him on his head, and we might knock some sense into him,” Anders says.

  “That is not possible,” April says. “A head injury would only exacerbate his condition and make it diff
icult to tell the effects of the intoxicants from that of the fall.”

  I shake my head and take off.

  * * *

  I’m walking to the station for my crime-scene kit when Sebastian catches up.

  “I’m not tagging along,” he says before I can speak. “I just didn’t want it to seem like I was taking advantage of the distraction by walking away. Am I free to go?”

  “No,” I say as I keep walking. “You’re free to go to Mathias. Tell him you’re working for him now.”

  “I, uh, don’t think he’ll like that.”

  “Too bad. You can apprentice under him, run errands for him, look after his damned dog. Whatever he wants. You’re working for him, and you’re under his care, and he is responsible for you.”

  “He’s really not going to like that.”

  “He’ll survive,” I say. “Hopefully, so will you. Now go find him and give him the good news.”

  I grab my kit from the station and then continue on to Roy’s place. As soon as I pull open his apartment door, I smell . . . bacon? I follow the scent into the kitchen. On the counter is a jar of grease. While we don’t raise pigs here, Mathias cures other meats into a bacon-like product, heavy on the smoke and spices. Roy has been collecting leftover grease in a jar. For cooking, I guess. It’s on the counter now—not just the jar, but the smears and clumps of grease, and as I get a better whiff, I realize that’s what he put in his hair.

  His razor is also in the kitchen, smeared with more of grease, as if he used it to lubricate the blade. I’m no expert in male grooming, but I think that explains the cuts. There are scissors and hair clippings, too, as if he trimmed his beard first. It’s a weird blend of logic and madness—that he knew enough to cut it shorter before shaving, but when he did shave, he used no mirror, no water, just . . . bacon fat.

  I take a sample of the grease, in case there’s something in it that caused his state. Considering that he started cutting his beard in here, though, I’m guessing he was already in that state before the lid came off that grease jar.

  Other than the shaving mess, his kitchen is spotless. I open the icebox under the floor. It’s full, everything neatly packaged and labeled. I empty it, find nothing suspicious and repack it for now—I’ll come back if I don’t find anything.

  Onto the bathroom. There’s something in the sink, specks of a dried material that looks plantlike. I open the medicine cabinet. Tylenol. Benadryl. I open both and find only what the labels proclaim. All Roy’s toiletries are as neatly arranged as his food. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then, on the top shelf, I notice the edge of a baggie. I tug it down to find dried mushrooms. They match the color and consistency of the specks in the sink.

  I lift the bag and consider the contents. Then I use tweezers to put a few sink specks into a vial. I label both and tuck them into my kit. I search the rest of the bathroom but find nothing.

  Back to the main room. On my way to track the bacon smell, I’d passed Roy’s clothing. I return now and consider the story it tells. It’s in a heap, like someone might leave before getting into bed, letting his clothing fall as he shed it. That heap sits in the middle of the floor.

  I look around and see nothing—

  No, that’s wrong. The living room is otherwise so tidy that anything out of place stands out. On the coffee table sits a book of word searches, a pen and a glass of red wine. I’d seen the bottle in the kitchen. While liquor is strictly regulated, we allow demi—or half-size—bottles of wine to be taken home, and that’s what I’d found in the kitchen—an empty bottle in the recycling bin. I return to the kitchen and check it. Drops linger in the bottom and when I lift it to the light, I see dampness along one side, where the contents were recently poured out. I tuck the bottle into a paper bag.

  Back to the living room. The wine glass has been drained to the dregs. I pour those last drops into a vial and take the glass. I’m lifting the puzzle book when Dalton comes in. He raises his hands to show that he’s already wearing gloves, like me.

  “Do I need to watch where I step?” he asks, looking around.

  “Only in the kitchen, though I haven’t checked the bedroom.”

  “You want me to do that?”

  I shake my head. “I’ll be done soon, and I’d rather just keep going.”

  “You want me to take notes?”

  I smile. “Sure, though I know you’re offering only as a roundabout way of asking me what I’ve found so far. But since you offered, you are now my secretary. First, while watching your step, go into the kitchen and tell me what you see?”

  He steps through the door. “Shit.”

  “Incorrect.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m glad it’s not shit, considering this is the stuff he put into his hair.”

  That sparks a memory, but it flutters past too fast to grab, and he continues, noting what I did and making notes as I dictate. I send him into the bathroom next. He barely gets through the doorway before saying, “What’s the stuff in the sink?”

  “I believe it’s mushrooms.”

  “What?” He leans out.

  “For your notes: Detective Butler noticed specks of an unknown substance in the sink. She collected samples. She then found a bag of dried mushrooms in the medicine cabinet, which may be the source of the substance.”

  “Dried mushrooms?”

  “Continuing . . . She also notes that Roy has never taken any interest in the forest and seems unlikely to be a forager. He may have purchased the mushrooms. If so, and if they are a hallucinogenic—or he believes them to be—it would seem safer to have stored them with his food. His icebox and cupboards suggest he prefers cooking to purchasing ready-made food, and if the mushrooms had been stored in there, they would have appeared part of his larder.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Which does not rule out the possibility that he simply never thought of that. You are writing this down, right?”

  He does as he walks into the living room.

  I continue, “A second potential source of the intoxicant is a glass of wine found by the sofa. The glass was finished. The bottle in the recycling and still damp. This suggests he drank it just before his episode. Also, while he may have drained the entire demi in one sitting, it’s more likely it was left, opened, in his kitchen, where it would be susceptible to tampering.”

  Dalton writes.

  I continue, “There is also a word search puzzle, which he seemed to be doing while drinking his wine. He was halfway through a puzzle and then . . .” I turn the book around. The pages are ripped, shredded by a very heavily wielded pen, used to scrawl obscenities across the page.

  “Tough puzzle, huh?” Dalton says.

  “Evidently.”

  I bag the book and head into the bedroom. Dalton follows and stays in the doorway. After I look around, I open drawers.

  This time, it’s Dalton who dictates for me, with “Detective Butler notes that the suspect’s clothing is neatly folded, as she might expect from the condition of his apartment. This confirms the overall impression of a tidy housekeeper, which is at odds with the clothing discarded in the living room. It would appear, then, that whatever intoxication he suffered caused the shedding of his clothing, rather than followed it.”

  “See,” I say. “You don’t need a detective.”

  “Nah, I’m just a quick study. You already figured he stripped because he was out of his mind. This is just adding evidence to that conclusion.”

  “True.”

  I riffle through Roy’s drawers. When I open the bottom one, it gives a clunk, as if something heavy is inside, yet I see only clothing. I dig down and find . . .

  “Porn,” I lift out magazines. “God, I haven’t seen these since I was a kid.”

  “You read those when you were a kid?”

  “I saw them at friend’s houses. As for whether I read them, I plead the fifth, though I’ll point out that I was young and curious, and the letters and articles were very . . . illuminating. These days, thoug
h, people get their porn online, which isn’t an option here.” I tuck the magazines back. “So residents can bring skin mags with them?”

  “They can. We also have a collection.”

  I look over at him. “What? Wait. I have gone through the entire library and never seen—”

  “It’s not at the library. Isabel has them. It was her idea. Magazines and erotic novels. She curates the collection to keep out stuff she considers ‘degrading or problematic,’ as she puts it. Pretty sure I don’t want to know what that is.”

  “Good call.” I lean back on my heels. “Good call on the collection, too. It provides another outlet for sexual urges. Looks like Roy has been taking full advantage of . . .”

  I trail as my gaze snags on something else in the drawer. I pull out a black rectangle. It looks like a fancy necklace box. I open it to find a Swiss watch.

  “A watch in a box?” Dalton says.

  “A very expensive watch in a box. This baby would cost more than my first car. Hell, it probably cost more than my last car. Looks like someone missed the memo about leaving your valuables behind.” I take the watch out.

  “Nice enough but . . .”

  “Not Roy’s style?”

  “Can you imagine him wearing it?” I ask.

  “It’s a woman’s, isn’t it?”

  It’s not. It’s just a more delicate style than most men’s, a sleek gold watch . . .

  “I’ve seen this before,” I say.

  “Up here?”

  Yes. On someone who had just arrived. I’d noticed the watch and laughed to myself, thinking he definitely hadn’t fully understood where he was going. Not surprisingly, the next time I saw him, the watch was gone. He’d returned this watch to the bottom of his luggage where it would remain, until he could escape to a more civilized world.

  “Can you guard the scene?” I say. “I need to speak to someone.”

  FORTY

  I find my target in his house. When I rap on the door, he cracks it open and narrows his eyes.

  “If you are coming to return me to that jail cell, I’d strongly suggest you speak to the council first,” he says. “In fact, they are quite eager to discuss my initial incarceration.”