I go about twenty steps before Dalton says, "Ty? Up. Walk between us."
As Cypher follows, he says, "You forgot to tell me you'll have a gun pointed at my head, in case I try to run."
"If it goes without saying, I don't say it. And the gun's at your back. Head's not a sure enough target."
"You really don't get humor, do you? That was a perfect opportunity for an insult, something about even my head not being a big enough target."
"Like I said, I don't mention anything that goes without saying."
We travel about another twenty paces, and I stop. I swivel. I inhale. I head to the right, cutting through thick brush. Then I spot something in the undergrowth. Something raw and bloody, peeking from under the snow. I crouch and brush off a layer of snow to see a skull with half its face torn off, eye missing, teeth clenched in a death's-head grin.
Cypher chuckles. "Well, now, seems you hired your detective for her pretty face. Can't say I blame you, though. That's a mighty fine rabbit you found there, girl. Dig up the rest. Maybe you can detect what killed it."
"What's your weapon of choice?" I ask. "Besides your hands?"
"You gonna challenge me to a duel?"
"Snare and knife," Dalton says. "Ty likes to get up close and personal with his prey."
"Then you missed this one." I brush back more snow to reveal the snare on its half-eaten leg. "You left it for the scavengers." I peer around. "Have you been hunting on Silas's property? Was that the source of the dispute? Or did you kill him and then settle in?"
"I said I never killed him. True fact, ma'am. That's my snare, 'cause I was bunking down with Silas for the winter. Paid in advance for the privilege, which is why I figure I can keep living here during his unforeseen absence."
I eye him. I don't buy the I-never-lie bullshit. To pull that off, all you need to do is establish a reputation for honesty while saving your falsehoods for when you really need them.
I rise and say, "Shouldn't waste your food."
"Waste? I was feeding the local wildlife. Act of charity."
"You tortured this local wildlife. Maybe someone should snare and leave you, see if you like it. Or drop you in a pit, leave you to rot."
I carefully watch his reaction, but he only says, "Silas was the one who liked trapping with pits. Which is fucking stupid with the permafrost. I always said he should switch to snares."
"Pits can be deep enough if you find the right terrain. Plenty of deep chutes in these mountain caves."
"What would you trap in them? Wood rats? Big critters don't roam the caves. They just use the entrances for shelter." He looks at Dalton. "You really do keep her around for ornamental value, don't you?"
"This isn't what I smelled," I say, nodding at the rabbit as I continue on. "It's buried under snow. The scent suggests something bigger. Which could just mean a deer or caribou or wolf or bear. If it was, I think I'd pick up the musk, too, but down south, I was in homicide, not animal control."
"Homicide? Seriously? Minority hiring at work, huh? How old are you? Twenty-four? Twenty-five?"
"Thirty-one."
"Huh. That's not so bad. Still young, but I knew a chick in homicide, around your age. Came closer to catching me than anyone else. Always figured it was 'cause she had to be better than the boys to get the job."
When he'd started grumbling about minority hiring, I'd been ready for the usual intimation that I only got my job because I fill both the gender and visible minority quotas--two-for-one special! I can't shove Tyrone Cypher squarely into the asshole box he seems to fit, and that's never comfortable.
Cypher is, well, a cipher. Which makes me suspect he had a say in his new surname.
I keep walking and sniffing. The smell of decomposing flesh gets stronger, and I'm focusing on that and then ...
And then the smell vanishes. I stop. I turn around, but I still can't smell it, and even when I retreat a few paces, the scent eludes me.
"Want a clue?" Cypher says. "Just ask nicely."
"It's the wind," Dalton says.
"Hey, don't be stealing my thunder."
I ignore him. I see what Dalton means. Facing north, the light breeze blows straight at me. When I turn around, I lose that, which means I've gone too far. I've passed my goal.
I back up and catch it again, but faint, meaning I'm still upwind. I keep going and ... I get a face full of the breeze and a nose full of the stink of decomposing flesh.
I survey the landscape. Then I walk step by step until the smell just begins to fade.
I turn. I look. I see nothing.
"Red hot," Cypher says. "You sure you don't want that clue? I'll trade you for--"
Cypher takes a step toward me, and Dalton's foot shoots out, kicking Cypher in the back of the knees. The big man goes down, then scrambles to flip over, stopping when Dalton presses the gun to his shoulder.
"That's some seriously bad aim, boy," Cypher says. "Guess that's what happens when you don't go to a proper school. Your sense of anatomy gets all fucked up."
"My sense of anatomy is just fine."
"Why--" Cypher stops and chortles. "Wait. I know this one." He glances at me. "When I was sheriff, I'd grab a guy and twist his index finger. He'd wonder why I did that, instead of twisting his arm."
"Because you might hesitate to break his arm," I say, "but you're not going to mind snapping his finger. It isn't an empty threat."
"Good girl. Seems your boss picked up a few of my tricks. Too bad he also learned from his daddy, with his over-re-li-ance on firearms. A real man would put that gun down and take me on properly."
"Then I guess your idea of a real man is a functional idiot," Dalton says.
Cypher throws back his head and howls a laugh. "Oh, that is good. You just forgot to follow it up with 'and that's not surprising, considering where it's coming from.'"
"That's another of those things that goes without saying."
Cypher grins at me. "The boy's real good at learning his lessons. When I was sheriff, sometimes, I'd give guys the option of skipping chopping duty by going a few rounds with me in the town square. You know how many lacked the brains to refuse? Small brains. Big egos. Plenty of entertainment for all. Now, boy, if you'd given me a second, you'd have seen I wasn't making a move on your cute detective. I was just going to point her in the right direction."
"Up," I say.
"What?"
I squint into the treetops. "The right direction is up. Silas is somewhere..." I trail off as I walk, my gaze fixed on the trees until I see a shape. It's so high I need my binoculars. I look through and see what is definitely a man's hand dangling from a branch.
Cypher says, "If you think I put him up there, you've got a very generous opinion of a big man's agility level. I can tell you what happened, but you're going to need to take my word for it, 'cause that's one crime scene you're not reaching without wings."
Dalton hands me his pack. Then he unzips his jacket.
"You're seriously going to climb up there?" Cypher says. "Guess you really are part ape."
Dalton ignores him and hands me his jacket. He's wearing a T-shirt, and as he grips the tree trunk to scale it, his muscles flex. Cypher whistles.
"You got some guns, boy. Not exactly my .45 Specials, but you're not as skinny as I remember. You sure you don't want to take me on? I'm getting to be an old man. You might actually win."
Dalton snorts.
Cypher laughs again. "You really did grow some brains, didn't you?"
Dalton starts to climb. It's not easy--he has to scale the lower trunk like a fireman's pole before he reaches branches thick enough to support him. Once he's up there, across from Cox, he calls down, "Tell me what you need in situ, and then I'll have to bring the crime scene to you."
I ask him to make note of Cox's position along with a preliminary assessment of injuries. He does and then says, "I'm bringing him down."
He manages to lower Cox about ten feet before he runs out of decent branch steps. Then he says, "
He's coming express," and I step back. He lowers the body as best he can and then lets Cox fall.
The corpse hits the snow face-first. Resisting the urge to turn him over, I assess his back. He's wearing a parka. Boots, too. One at least. The other is gone, along with the leg that once occupied it. I brush snow away from the severed leg. It's been pulled off, not cut. The flesh is mangled and decomposed enough to tell me Cox has been in that tree for about a week. Which means he's not our man.
Dalton hops down as I move to checking the only other obvious area of injury I see from the rear--Cox's neck. It's been bitten from the back, with perfect puncture wounds on either side of his spine. Bitten and broken, his head at an impossible angle. Dalton confirms the neck was like that before he moved the body.
When I give the sign, he flips Cox over. Here's where I see the real damage, his parka ripped open, chest ripped open, the two mingling in a mess of feathers and fabric and shredded flesh.
"Eaten," I say. "Something stored him in that tree for later. The only tree-climbing beast out here with the power to do that would be a cougar. Which is consistent with the bite marks. That's how they attack, right? Like a cat. Pin and bite the neck, rather than rip out the throat like a canine would."
"Yep," Dalton says.
"And the caching? Is that normal?"
"It is. They'll use deadfall sometimes, but a tree will do the trick, too. Any place to hide their prey."
"So unless I can shape-shift into a big cat, this ain't my fault," Cypher says as he rises to his feet. "Agreed?"
"You knew what happened to him," I say. "You knew where he was. But you had to toy with us."
"Out here, you take your amusement where you find it. And you two were so cute. Hot on the trail of the killer cougar. You gonna go arrest her?"
"You gonna tell us where we can find her?" Dalton says. "This is at least the second person she's killed in the last few years. She's learned we're easy prey, which is no joking matter."
"Nope, it's not," Cypher says. "Which is why you don't need to worry about this particular she-bitch. I've been out here every day, watching for her to come back."
"How long exactly?" I ask.
He eyes me. "That important?"
"It might be."
"I was out checking my traps six days ago when I heard Silas scream. By the time I got here, she was hauling him up that tree."
THIRTY-EIGHT
I'm preparing to leave when Cypher steps into my path and says, "You do realize I used to be sheriff in Rockton, right? Whatever this boy's daddy thought of my methods, I kept the law in that town. I know a few things about police work. Had a lot of experience circumventing it in my former life, if you know what I mean."
I have no intention of walking away without questioning him. But I can't let him know I want something, or it'll be another invitation to a game.
"Well," I say, "if you know police investigations, you know there's a limit to what I can tell you. Short version is that we're looking for a man who held a Rockton woman captive in a cave for over a year. And she may not have been the first he put there--just the first who survived the ordeal."
He looks at Dalton. "She serious?"
"Does either of us seem like the type who'd joke about that?"
"Keeping a woman in a cave? That's fucked up. And you say there've been others?"
"Possibly two."
"Stretching back how far?"
"The first one disappeared from Rockton about five years ago."
"After my time." He nods in satisfaction. "Knew your daddy wasn't up to the job."
"Yeah, well, half as many people disappeared into the forest under his watch."
"Mine didn't disappear. They took off 'cause I scared them away. Weeding out the bad apples." He looks at me. "So if we're talking five years, that must cut your in-town suspects down to about zero. That why you're rooting around out here?"
"It is."
"Huh. Well, the problem, as I'm sure our boy told you, is that we don't exactly have a high proportion of stable individuals in these woods. Ol' Silas would have been a damned fine suspect. Other than that ... Well, now that I think of it, I might have another lead for you."
"Go on," Dalton says.
"I was talking to your girl. I think my information is valuable enough to set a price. Tit for tat." He leers at me. "You show me yours, and I'll show you mine."
"Enough," Dalton says. "You fancy yourself a former lawman? Try showing her a little professional respect."
"Oh, come on," Cypher says. "Just a flash. Make an old man's day. You don't have to look, boy. We'll do it behind the cabin over here."
"Shut the fuck--"
"I've got this," I say to Dalton.
His look says not to play Cypher's game. Which doesn't mean he actually thinks I'll flash my breasts--just that he's had enough of Cypher's bullshit. When I head behind the cabin, though, he only grumbles. It takes Cypher a moment to follow. He does, and we're out of sight, and he glances back around to check on Dalton.
"You trying to make the boss jealous?" he says as he walks to me.
"Why do you think that?"
"'Cause you're sure as hell not going to flash me."
"Then why ask? Oh, let me guess--you were just trying to rile me up."
"Nah. You don't give a shit. Him, though..." He jerks a thumb toward the front of the cabin and grins. "That boy's got a serious case of puppy love, and I wanted to yank his chain."
"So you don't want to see my tits?"
"Fuck, no. I'm not a perv."
I shake my head. "I called you back here so I can get the answers in a way Eric might not approve of." I take off my jacket. "By beating them out of you."
He laughs. Laughs so hard he has to lean against the cabin for support. Two minutes later, he's flat on his stomach with his arm twisted behind his back.
"Shit," he says.
"The bigger they are..."
"Huh." He cranes his neck to look back at me, completely unperturbed. "Where'd you learn to throw down like that?"
"Black belt in aikido. I've also got a boxing championship, but it's flyweight, meaning I can't actually beat the answers out of you. Well, I could pin you down and kick until you talk, but that's unsporting. It will get awfully cold, though, facedown in the snow."
He chuckles, then shouts, "Boy? You listening in?"
"Of course," Dalton says, coming around the cabin. "I don't need to eavesdrop when it's this quiet. I think you should get up, though. Lying like that, you won't see anything when she flashes you."
Cypher flashes Dalton--the finger, that is--but there's no rancor in it. He rises and says, "When you say this woman was kept in a cave, was it Three Peaks or Bear Skull?"
"You're the one offering the lead," Dalton says. "You tell me."
"Well, my lead is for Bear Skull. There's a guy out here, second-generation Rockton departee, like you and your brother, only he's not quick to volunteer that information. You know the First Settlement? The one over by Caribou River?"
"Yeah."
"He's from there originally. Pretends he just wandered in from down south and stayed." He looks at me. "You know how many people actually do that? Most folks in this twenty-mile radius have a Rockton connection. Otherwise, it'd be the most populated stretch of the Yukon wilderness. But folks don't go around saying that. Whatever happened to them or their families in Rockton, they respect the idea of it enough not to take a shit on those still there. Rockton was a safe place for us, and the best way to leave it safe for others is to keep our mouths shut."
"But you know this guy is a second-generation settler," Dalton says.
"Yeah. He let enough slip for me to figure it out. He knows the town exists but doesn't know shit about specifics, which means second generation. He tried asking me more about it years ago, having heard I used to be sheriff. I shut him down. Reason I'm mentioning it is that he's been taking a lot of interest in Rockton recently. Very recently."
"What kind of intere
st?"
"Law enforcement mainly. What kind you have there, how good it is."
"This guy got a name?" Dalton asks.
"Everyone does. He goes by Roger."
I look at Dalton as his gaze slides my way, both of us recognizing the name Jacob gave me for the contact he thought we should speak to.
"Can you describe him?" I ask.
Cypher does. It matches what I saw of the man in the forest--the one who'd been chasing Sutherland.
"When did this conversation take place?" I ask.
"Few days ago, after that cougar-bitch got Silas. I was out hunting her."
I nod, assimilating that, and then say. "On another note, talk to me about hostiles."
"Rather not. Rather just pretend they don't exist. Better yet, rather make them not exist." He looks at Dalton. "Don't give me that look, boy. You know as well as I do that if animals acted that way, we'd put them down. Just like this cougar. At least she mostly keeps to herself, doesn't try to cause trouble."
"Do the hostiles bother you?" I ask.
"Their existence bothers me. Just like the cougar's does. Because it's the same thing. Guys like me will give you a chance to leave if you get on their territory. Hostiles just attack. They're not even killing us for food. I think I'd respect them more if they did."
"So you have experience with them."
"As little as possible. But yeah, I do. Fucking savages."
"Too savage to do something like this? Take a woman hostage and keep her captive?"
"Hell, no. It's exactly the sort of thing they'd do." He looks at Dalton. "Remember those four who went missing? You saw the woman later? What was her name?"
"Maryanne. I told Casey about her. But that seems a case of conversion rather than hostage taking."
"Unless she was captured and escaped. Driven crazy by being held in a cave or whatever."
Dalton nods. "I hadn't thought of that."
"Because you don't think like a fucking lunatic. I do. It's why I made a good sheriff." Cypher turns to me. "Hostiles could do this. The problem is that it's a lot easier if it's someone like this Roger guy."
"Because I can interview him. And talk to others about him. Not so with the hostile."
His eyes glitter. "Oh, but you can talk to them. They have networks, too. If I capture one--"
"No," Dalton says.
Cypher says nothing but gives me a look to say the offer stands, give it some thought.
A Darkness Absolute Page 19
