Sally was waiting for me when I got to the sheriff’s station. She looked grim as I walked over and shook her hand. The moment we touched, I watched her lift her face and sniff the air, narrowing her eyes as she stared at me. The sudden realization that she could smell Vincent on me was slightly disturbing. Was it possible that Sally—my deputy—was one of the supernatural creatures Vincent had talked about? Noooo… I dismissed the possibility just as quickly. I should have taken a shower. Maybe I smelled like sex even though Vincent had taken the time to clean me up.
“So, what’s going on?” I asked, pushing away my racing thoughts.
“We should get out there. The sheriff from Lompoc said it’s bad.” She jangled her keys. “We’ll take the Blazer. That okay with you, Sheriff?”
“Yup. I don’t mind if you drive at all, Sally.” Without another word, she turned her back on me and headed for the door.
I followed behind her, unused to the cold shoulder treatment from the woman who’d smiled and greeted me with friendliness less than a day ago. I locked up the door to the station with the keys she’d given me soon after meeting me and followed her to the department’s Blazer, getting into the front passenger seat beside her. She started it up with a roar and we drove out of town.
“So, tell me about Frederick,” I said, trying to break the sudden ice-cold mood in the car.
Sally sighed. “Think of Frederick as a dirty uncle you just can’t get rid of.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Elaborate?”
She glanced over at me and I caught the ghost of a smile cross her lips before she turned her attention back to the road.
“Seriously—and I’m not trying to be cliché here—Frederick is the kind of place folks would be happy to be from, if they were lucky enough to ever leave the place.”
“You make it sound like Dorothy trapped in Oz with no way out,” I said.
She glanced at me again, nodding this time before looking back at the road.
“Let’s just say, most people would never leave the place because it’s one big town where everyone is related to everyone else. Think of those tiny little Appalachian towns.”
“We’re not talking incest here, right?”
She shook her head. “None of that I know of, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s rampant in Frederick if I’m being honest. What I’m talking about is that first cousins definitely marry each other and most of the girls are married by the time they’re thirteen or when they get their first menstruation.”
“Christ.” I reached up and rubbed my hand over my face before letting out a pained groan of horror. “Are the residents not aware that the legal age of consent is eighteen in California or is it that they just don’t give a shit?”
“I think it’s the latter, Sheriff.”
“Who’s going to marry them? I mean they can’t get a marriage license without parental consent and even then, the petition to marry under the age of eighteen has to get a superior court order to do so,” I said. “If you can find a superior court judge who will sign off on a thirteen-year-old getting married, I’d be stunned.”
She was nodding. “I know but in Frederick the bride and groom do a ceremony with handfasting and witnesses. That’s what constitutes marriage to those folks. I haven’t seen a single licensed marriage in the town in the five years I’ve been on the force.”
I looked over at her. “How do you know so much about Frederick, Sally?”
She sighed and I could see how she gripped the steering wheel tighter. “We had some trouble with some rowdy individuals sometime back. They don’t have a bar in Frederick so the ones who want to get their drink on, spend their time at the saloon in Prosper Woods. We’ve been called out to break up fights more than once. Our former sheriff finally told Floyd Reardon that he was going to start fining him every time he served one of them. That pretty much put an end to it.”
“Floyd Reardon is the bar owner, right? I think you mentioned him before,” I said. “What’s the deal with him?”
“Oh sorry. I tend to forget everyone doesn’t know that piece of shit.” She turned to look at me with a frown on her face before turning her attention back to the road as she made a left hand turn off the highway. We began driving down a narrow two-lane road that took us deeper into the woods.
“Like I said, Floyd Reardon owns the saloon and you’ve never met a more disagreeable asshole in your life. Let me put it this way, he’s not a nice guy. He’s a bully and a real piece of shit. He hits on women and won’t take a hint when they reject his advances. He’s been warned a time or two about that as well. Most women don’t complain because—I don’t know—he has some sort of animal sex appeal to some. With others, you can practically smell the fear on them when they do make a complaint.”
I frowned. I’d met guys like this Reardon character lots of times. They think they are the second coming and that gives them the courage to act however they want. Sally continued.
“Anyway, after the sheriff’s warning, Floyd stopped coming around. He installed Greg Brown to run the place and tend bar.”
“I met Greg. He seems like a stand-up guy.” I smiled. “You were right about him though. He’s not the sharpest.”
Sally chuckled. “True. Anyway, Greg lives out in Frederick and he grew up with Floyd so Floyd hired him to watch the place and bartend. These days, I only see Floyd in town when he comes to pay Greg, the waitresses, and their cook and most likely empty the safe with the week’s take. I know that he goes to the bank right after the bar so that makes some sense.”
“Okay, so Greg has things under control now?” I really didn’t want to mitigate a situation at the bar, at least until I figured the ins and outs of the new job.
I also had to find out who the supernatural creatures were. I had no one to ask but Vincent. I smiled inwardly as I thought about the vampire.
“The rowdy ones still come into town and visit the saloon and they all drive big Harley Davidsons. You can hear them coming into town with those loud unmistakable hogs. You know the type of men I’m talking about. Big ol’ nasty bikers with lots of muscles and tons of tattoos.” She sighed again. “I haven’t been called out there since the sheriff had the talk with Floyd so I think things are under control. I’m not sure if it’s because of Greg though. Greg is a really passive guy which is why he’s a perfect fit for the bar. And he’s big enough that I suspect he can remove troublemakers by force if needed. It’s probably why Floyd put him behind the bar. Still…” She paused and I turned to look at her. She kept her eyes on the road.
“What?”
“Well, I think Greg is just as intimidated by Floyd as the rowdy bunch.”
“You’re right. Floyd sounds like a piece of shit bully.”
She nodded. “Which is why I’m glad he’s rarely around.”
The car lurched as it ran over a bump and I looked straight ahead, noting how rutted the road had gotten. The trees were thick on both sides of us. We’d only been driving about fifteen minutes when Sally pointed out the front windshield. “There’s the lights from the sheriff’s car. He told me he’d leave them on for us.”
I looked where she was pointing and sure enough, I spotted a large trailer and a smaller truck hooked up to the front of it. The headlights of the truck were on, pointing off into the trees and the trailer was lit up inside. The lights in the trailer told me that the sheriff of Lompoc and whoever was with him were probably waiting for us to arrive. As soon as we drove up, the door to the truck opened and a tall man stepped out. I hadn’t realized anyone was sitting inside the truck, probably because I was too focused on how creepy it felt just being this deep in the woods with no one around.
Sally and I got out and walked over to the man who was about sixty with a slightly paunchy belly and a ruddy, sunburned face. I noticed that he wore a sidearm strapped to his hip and I really hoped he was who he said he was. I had my Glock and Sally also wore a gun, but the last thing I wanted to have to do was draw my weapon.
“You must be Deputy Winters,” the man said to Sally, sticking out his hand.
“Yes, that’s right and this is our new sheriff, Rome Harmon,” Sally said.
“Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking both of our hands. “I’m Sheriff Carl Jensen from Lompoc.” He pointed to the trailer. “My wife and two sons are inside. My wife’s the one who found what’s left of a person when she woke up. We were up real late last night enjoying the quiet of the woods before that.”
“Can we talk to your wife, Sheriff Jensen?” Sally asked.
I looked at her before glancing back to the sheriff. “Is she sleeping?”
The sheriff smiled. “How’d you know?”
“Because when people experience a trauma, they either really want to talk about it—in which case she’d be out here with you to greet us—or they experience a drop of adrenaline that leaves them exhausted,” I said.
The sheriff chuckled, touching his nose before pointing at me. “Right on the nose. She’s done with all of it. As soon as she realized we weren’t in any danger, she went back to the trailer and crashed.”
“Can you tell me what happened here last night?” I asked.
“Well, sir, we cleaned up after dinner, sat down at the campfire we built, and had a few beers. About one in the morning, we heard a lot of howling in the woods. I didn’t know these woods were populated with wolves but I s’pose it makes some sense, though we are a bit too far south for that.” He paused for a minute and looked out into the sequoia forest. “Anyway, the howls died away after a while and we all went to bed. My wife don’t sleep so good anymore and when she heard a blood-curdling scream, she got up and went out. A few minutes later, she heard animal sounds in the woods just north of us. She came back to the trailer and grabbed a flashlight and my sidearm…” He stopped to pat the gun on his hip.
“She went back out there alone?” Sally asked. I turned to look at her and noted how wide her eyes were.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jensen said with a smile. “She’s former military, a lifelong hunter, and a better aim than I am, I’m embarrassed to say. I’ve been on the force for forty years and the woman can still outshoot me. It’s a matter of deep pain for me.”
The tongue firmly planted in Sheriff Jensen’s cheek in no way made him look like he was being the least bit serious.
“Anyway, she walked into the woods, taking bear spray with her because she was pretty sure that’s what she was gonna find. After about fifty yards in that direction, she stumbled upon a gruesome sight.” He pointed to the trees. “I can take you to it.”
“I’m a little confused because when my deputy called me, she indicated you told her it was a murder. From what you’re saying, it sounds like an animal mauled some poor guy in the woods.”
Jensen nodded. “Well, I’ll leave that to you to decide when you see the scene but, yessir, I’m pretty convinced it is a murder.”
What he was telling us was odd but I wanted to see for myself. I looked at Sally. “You ready?”
“Whenever you are, Sheriff. Let me get flashlights.”
It wasn’t yet dawn but the sky had already begun to brighten. I knew it would be darker in the woods so I waited patiently for Sally to return from retrieving the items from the Blazer, taking one that she passed me.
“It’s this way,” Jensen said before moving to the edge of the clearing and then walking into the woods. All three of us turned on our flashlights and made our way through the pine forest. When I spotted a sequoia, my breath caught. Sequoias were easy to distinguish from other redwoods. I looked up and watched the monster tree disappearing above the tree line.
The base of the tree was at least eighteen feet across with a dark red bark. The branches of the tree began at least a hundred feet off the ground and until that spot, all a person could see were smooth, widely spaced vertical grooves in the tree. Standing beside it made me feel like a tiny insignificant ant in the whole scheme of things. We were all quiet as we passed the tree and continued deeper into the woods.
After fifty yards, Jensen stopped, turning to us. “Now you’ll see what I am talking about.” He turned and pointed his flashlight to the ground about ten yards from us. The first thing I saw was something flesh colored and covered in blood. I realized it was a human hand as I began to walk toward it. We crept through the forest being quiet until we stopped in front of it. I crouched down and pointed my flashlight at it, noting that it appeared to have been torn from an arm which wasn’t anywhere around. It definitely looked like an animal attack to me. When I stood up, Sally, standing beside me, had her head back and she seemed to be sniffing the air. When she finally turned to look at me, she appeared startled that I’d caught her in the act.
“Smells like blood,” she said, shrugging.
I deliberately sniffed the air and she was right. There was a strong coppery scent of blood in the air. The man—and I assumed it was male from the hand—probably had been killed here.
“There’s more,” Sheriff Jensen said from about ten feet away. His flashlight pointed to the ground and we walked over. On the ground in front of him was a second hand, severed from the arm in precisely the same place at the wrist, and in the same manner… torn off, not cut with a blade. I was now certain our medical examiner would be finding teeth marks in the exposed bone. I still wasn’t convinced this was anything other than an animal attack.
“Come on. I’ll show you the rest,” Jensen said.
We followed him about twenty feet away and I stopped, once again squatting to look at a severed foot, still in a dilapidated hiking boot. It looked much the same. Ten feet from that, rounding out the square, was a second foot though this one was shoeless. Only a filthy tube sock hung from the big toe.
“And finding four body parts at the corners of a perfect square is what screamed murder and not animal attack in my mind,” Jensen said. He pointed his flashlight at a tree stump in the center of the square. I’d walked right by it focused on where he was leading us with his flashlight in the dark as we discovered the hands and feet. Now as I added the beam of my own flashlight to his, the head of an older man sitting on the stump of a fallen tree almost made me jump back. It had been placed on the stump. There was no two ways about it. It had been left there by human hands. No animal would have left something as tempting as a head with a juicy brain inside its skull.
“Oh, Jesus! It’s Buck Walters!” Sally cried out, standing next to me as she stared in horror at the head with its wide eyes and lolling tongue which looked like it was caught between his teeth as if he’d bitten down on it while being dismembered still alive. I felt my stomach doing a slow roll.
“Christ,” I muttered under my breath.
“Now you understand why I say it’s a murder?” Jensen asked.
“Yeah, I do,” I said, dragging my gaze away from the horrific sight. I ran my flashlight over the grass and realized that we were standing in grass soaked with blood. “This is where he was killed and dismembered,” I said.
“Yes,” the sheriff said.
I heard Sally gasp in a massive breath of air and I reached over, wrapping my arm around her shoulder and pulling her close to me. She was shaking but I noticed that she completely stopped the moment I drew her close. I felt her lean into my side, very happy that she felt I was a comfort to her.
“Do we have a forensics team?” I asked, having no idea.
She looked up at me, still leaning as she nodded. “The medical examiner is very well trained as are her guys. I’ll call them as soon as we get back to the Blazer.”
I nodded, squeezing her one last time before dropping my arm. “I want to get some pictures in case animals or scavengers come back before we can get a team out here at daybreak,” I said, glancing at my watch. “That should be in less than an hour.” I realized I was exhausted. Maybe because Vincent taking my blood had tired me or maybe because I’d been up for twenty-four hours straight was why I felt my lids drooping.
I pulled out my phone and mad
e my way around the square, snapping pics of each body part as well as the scene itself. I made sure I got the giant puddle of blood which was now contaminated with our footprints as well as Jensen’s wife’s. Once I’d finished, we all started back for the campsite. I just knew it was going to be a long fucking day.
Chapter Seven
Prosper Woods Chronicle. Letters to the editor:
“I’ve lived in Prosper Woods for six months now. Can anyone tell me when forest creatures are going to come in and clean my house?” Signed, “Snow White was all a lie.”
Sid
Shaking my head, I watched the aftermath of the bloodbath in the woods from a distance. The moment the new sheriff came to town, I knew things were going to get dicey. I’d already known about the arrival of the vampire. Several of the construction workers who were remaking the old cabin out in the woods had popped by the store to pick up food and drinks and even the occasional case of beer. The thing about these guys was that they just couldn’t keep their mouths shut. As soon as they’d talked about installing an elevator to access the new basement room they were installing, I knew exactly what was going on.
A vampire was moving into town.
Things were bad enough around here. Floyd Reardon and his pack of werewolves were a rowdy bunch and some of them were dangerous. I’d been happy when he’d struck an arrangement with our former sheriff and installed Greg Brown to run the bar. Greg was as dumb as a sack of hair, but he had an easygoing personality and a kind heart, two things that were rare in wolves. I suppose if we had to have a wolf running the bar, Greg was the best kind to have.
But now we had a vampire setting up shop in town, not to mention our new sheriff. Things had already gotten dangerous. I’d been out in the woods, setting up spells around the town to make sure we were all safe when I’d stumbled across the carnage. It had been years since I’d seen a warning like the one Floyd’s wolves left for anyone who’d stumble across it. Poor Buck Walters. I was sure he’d gotten drunk and had been out in the woods too close to Frederick lands and chosen at random. Why had Floyd decided he should be left the way he had though?
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