Barking at the Moon

by Nene Adams

  What about her investigation into Lassiter’s murder? Was the killer trying to warn her off because she was getting too close?

  Annalee considered the Gunns as the likeliest suspects since she was sure one of them had killed her father. At the Pro Shop the other day, Titus had insinuated they were responsible for Jefferson Crow’s murder, and she didn’t think the old man had been blowing smoke up her ass. This piece of cruelty nailed to her door seemed meant to intimidate or frighten her. Certainly, Titus and his boys were more than capable of such bullying.

  A bone-deep tiredness settled over her like the heaviest mantle imaginable, muffling her senses and weighing her down. Moving slowly, she went into the house to fetch the equipment she needed to pry out the nails, remove the bird’s body and clean up her door. No point reporting the incident. The second an official investigation was opened, the press would camp at her office demanding statements, and there’d be public speculation ranging from manic stalker to Satanic ritual. That kind of grief she did not need, not when there was already so much going on in her life.

  Tomorrow, she would go on with her duties. She wouldn’t permit this monstrous attempt at intimidation prevent her from doing her duty.

  Tonight, she could only hope the dead crow—and her father, another dead Crow—wouldn’t feature in her nightmares.

  Chapter Four

  By the following afternoon, Dempsey was still a no-show at the church, but Annalee continued to pin her hopes on the surveillance teams. Leaving Noah in charge of the office, she took a patrol car out, intending to go over to the morgue and see about the deformed victim from the day before. Not in the mood for company, she drove alone.

  As predicted, her sleep had been troubled by a nightmare, but not of birds or crows. Instead, she had seen a pale wolfskin nailed flat to her back door. The head was attached to the pelt. The wolf’s golden eyes glittered at her, awake and aware, filled with a loneliness and longing that clawed at her heart. Mine. She had woken up wiping tears from her cheeks, her chest aching, her throat raw, wishing Lunella Skinner was there…which in the light of day was seven kinds of crazy, no matter how miserable she’d felt at oh-hell-thirty in the morning.

  After checking into the morgue, she made the long awful walk down the corridor. She found Betty Vernon in the main autopsy room, standing by a stainless steel sink and knocking back a shot of whiskey. A half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels stood near her elbow.

  The sight of the medical examiner drinking hard liquor during the day was so shocking, Annalee halted in her tracks to gape.

  Betty lowered the glass and grimaced at her. “Join me?” she asked.

  “The hell? When did you start drinking on the job?” Annalee demanded, wondering if this was the first time Betty had indulged on duty—if so, where had the bottle come from?—or just the first time she’d caught her with the evidence in hand.

  “Since I got that in my morgue.” Betty pointed at the first autopsy table, where the dead wolf was strapped down on its back, its stiffened legs in the air. Flaps of hairy flesh and the rib cage were peeled back to expose the animal’s body cavity. The grotesquely deformed female victim lay on the second table, her naked body looking pitiful under the harsh fluorescent lights. She, too, had already been opened for a postmortem examination.

  Annalee reached out and took the empty glass from Betty, hoping the woman wouldn’t start chug-a-lugging whiskey straight out of the bottle. “You want to tell me what’s going on, or do I have to stand here and guess?”

  “That thing shouldn’t exist.” Betty indicated the dead wolf a second time. “Its organs are…the only way I can describe it is ‘wrong.’” She pronounced the last word faintly, on an exhalation of breath. She added more strongly, “You have no idea, Sheriff. No idea at all.”

  “Just tell me.”

  Betty sighed. “There are medical details you won’t understand, but the gastrointestinal tract, the muscles of the bladder neck…let’s say that if I didn’t know better, if I wasn’t certain I could detect any tampering with the corpse, I’d swear this was a prank.”

  “How so?”

  “Bottom line and without resorting to a lot of jargon, that thing may grossly resemble a wolf of the Canis lupus variety, but inside, it’s more Homo sapiens than canine. The apparent hypodontia—that’s the poorly developed and undersized teeth—is actually normal for an adult human male, thirty-two teeth plus scars on the gums from past wisdom teeth removal. And then there’s the blood, which is human too. Type A, in fact.”

  Annalee’s gut clenched. She suddenly felt like taking a drink herself. “Are you sure?”

  “The differences between the two species are significant, Sheriff. I triple-checked my findings. Besides, how many wolves do you know who’ve had their wisdom teeth surgically extracted?” Betty closed her eyes before opening them again. She looked tired.

  “This isn’t a joke.” Annalee made it a statement rather than a question.

  Betty’s mouth thinned to a grim line. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Apart from the other evidence of just how wrong this is, the stomach contents included filet mignon, baked potato with butter and sour cream, and creamed spinach, as well as the better part of a bottle of red wine, bourbon and espresso.”

  “O-o-o-okay,” Annalee replied, her astonishment increasing. “Looks like our wolf ate a damned fine dinner at T-Bones in Odom.” A pricy, upscale steak house famous for its creamed spinach side dish, T-Bones had the motto “Rare steaks well done.” Her father had taken her there for a celebratory dinner when she graduated from the academy. “I wonder if our victim put it on his American Express Black Card,” she quipped.

  Betty ignored her attempt at humor. “I also found irregular, enlarged alveolar spaces of black emphysematous lung tissue and small bronchogenic carcinomas.” Clearly taking pity on Annalee’s blank look, she explained, “Our wolf smoked at least a pack a day.”

  Annalee breathed, “Jesus Christ on a bicycle.”

  “I don’t think He has much to do with it.”

  “Don’t bogart the whiskey, woman. Gimme that.” Annalee grabbed the Jack Daniels bottle when Betty offered it and took a swig. The whiskey burned going down her throat, but the mellow heat soon settled to a comfortable glow. “Anything else you want to tell me?” she asked, dreading the answer. Any more weirdness and she might snap.

  “Our female victim’s stomach contents were similar to the wolf’s, except she had a salad with French dressing instead of creamed spinach and a lot more bourbon. She also has the beginnings of cirrhosis. Her blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit.”

  “What killed her?”

  “A massive stroke. I estimate her age at over fifty, but her arteries were clear, no sign of carotid occlusion. No diabetes, no heart conditions, no vasculitis. As far as I can tell, her blood pressure simply skyrocketed, causing a rupture in the artery. Like being shot in the head at close range…no warning and she wouldn’t have felt a thing. She literally dropped dead. I haven’t been able to determine why her blood pressure rose so rapidly. There are drugs, of course, but her tox screen came back negative for the most common.”

  “And the wolf?”

  “That one’s even odder, if possible. God, I need another drink. Stuff like this is only supposed to happen to Mulder and Scully.” Betty picked up a kidney-shaped metal pan. Several small round balls rolled around in it. “Shotgun pellets made of silver.”

  “You’re shitting me,” Annalee said flatly.

  “’Fraid not. None of the pellets penetrated very far into the wolf’s body, and they didn’t damage any of its internal organs. Near as I can tell, the wolf suffered an acute anaphylactic reaction after being shot. Death was due to breathing obstruction. Its throat swelled shut.”

  Annalee felt her eyes growing rounder. “It was allergic to the silver?”

  “Yes, I believe so.” Betty walked across the room and put the pan down on the counter next to the sink. The clink of metal on metal sound
ed very loud in the otherwise quiet morgue. “These pellets are consistent with the ones I retrieved from Lassiter’s throat wound, by the way. Sheriff, I’ve seen things in my time that would curl your hair, but this takes the cake. I’m not sure if I’m losing my mind or if I’ve wandered onto a movie set.”

  “You’re not alone. I’m freaking out too.” Annalee spotted a gleam of white in an evidence bag. “What’s that?”

  “String of natural pearls. I found it around the female victim’s neck. They’re real, all right.” Betty smiled for the first time. “You rub ’em on your teeth. The cultered pearls feel smooth, but real pearls are slightly rough.” She waited a beat for Annalee’s horrified gulp before adding, “Of course, that’s not a good idea when the pearls in question have been in contact with a biological hazard like a human corpse, so I applied another test to determine the pearls’ authenticity. Whoever she was, our victim had money or access to significant sums to afford that piece of jewelry.”

  Annalee stood stock still, stunned. Real pearls…that brought a memory slamming home. Shit! She knew exactly where she’d recently seen a woman wearing a string of pearls. In her mind’s eye, she saw the pearls glimmering discreetly against lavender cashmere. An impossible thought, a thought that made her mind shudder away in revulsion and disbelief, and yet… A horrible suspicion dawned.

  “Listen, if I authorize the expense from my discretionary fund, will you rush DNA results for the female victim and the wolf?” she asked.

  Betty’s gaze was direct and unsettling. “Now why would I do that?”

  “Because I said so, damn it.” Annalee shoved the Jack Daniels bottle back on the counter. “Sorry. Just rush the results, okay? I’ll process the forms today.”

  “It’ll take a couple of days for the state lab to process a priority request.”

  “Soon as the results are in, you call me.” Annalee had to make herself clear. “You call me first, yeah? Nobody else. And hold off on that article you’re planning to write.”

  As she turned to go, Betty stopped her. “What is it?” she asked accusingly. “Why do you want me to test the wolf’s DNA? What the hell do you know?”

  “I can’t talk about it now, maybe later. Christ, just do it, okay? Send the samples in as soon as I push through the paperwork. I’ll call you.” Annalee shrugged off Betty and continued out of the morgue, needing air and open spaces. On her way to the car, she wondered what other spitballs she would have to deal with today. So this is what being the ground-floor tenant in a two-story outhouse is like. She took out her cell phone and called the Crime Scene Unit.

  “Hey, Wally, I need to know what evidence was picked up at the Ateeska River scene yesterday,” she said when the call was answered by the day-shift supervisor.

  “You mean the gargoyle lady? Sorry, that’s what the techs are calling the vic,” Wallace Cumberland replied in a nasal drawl. “Lemme grab the report…Okay. Some pieces of cloth—pure Mongolian cashmere, very high end, we’re trying to trace the dye lot to the manufacturer. Half-empty pack of Dunhill cigarettes, which is rare in this neck of the woods, you’d have to agree, most folks around here dip snuff. An 18-karat white-gold cigarette lighter with the initials A.M.T. A Patek watch. Man’s shirt, trousers and jacket—Saville Row tailored and probably cost more than a lowly peon like me makes in a month. Looks like the lighter I mentioned was found in the coat pocket. No wallet or ID. Whoever belonged to the clothing didn’t even leave lint in the trouser pockets. Clean as a whistle. The clothing was found near the scene, the lighter and Dunhills about a hundred yards away under a blackberry bush. No idea if the items are related to your victim. There were prints on the lighter and the cigarette pack. We’re running them through AFIS.”

  “Do me a favor, Wally. Have you got computer access where you’re sitting?” Annalee blinked sweat out of her eyes. The notion was unbelievable, absolute lunacy. She was half tempted to disconnect the call and forget what Betty had told her or at least pretend to forget. Nevertheless, she had seen the evidence. There was doubt, yes, but there was also a little part of her that believed it might be true.

  “Yeah. Shoot,” Wallace replied.

  “I need info on a lawyer out of Atlanta, Aiden Thompson.”

  The sound of clicking keys filtered through the phone. In the background, Annalee made out muted music playing, some kind of ethnic thing full of drums, high-pitched flutes and twanging string instruments.

  Getting in the patrol car, she winced when her butt made contact with the scorching leather seat. The steering wheel proved too hot to touch, as she discovered when she had to snatch her hand back or risk first-degree burns. She left the door wide open, hoping to catch a breeze and relieve some of the oven-like temperature, but the air was still, as dead as her great-uncle Hammond. The heat coming off the parking lot asphalt made her want to start shedding clothes. Instead, she sweated in her uniform, held the phone to her ear and waited for Wallace to finish his search.

  “Aiden Thompson, senior partner at Thompson, Thompson, Camp and McElwee,” Wallace muttered at last. “Here we go…what do you need to know?”

  “First off, does he have a middle name?”

  More keyboard clicking. “Yep, it’s Marshall.”

  Annalee closed her eyes, remembering the initials on the lighter. “Thompson’s an officer of the court, which means his fingerprints are on file with the Criminal Justice Department. You’ve got access, right?”

  “Sheriff, I’ve got an all-season pass to every database you can name and then some. So you’re thinking the lighter belongs to this Thompson guy, huh? Let’s find out.”

  When hearing hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. That was the problem with law enforcement training, she thought. It left a person completely unprepared for stuff that didn’t make logical sense. Many officers had difficulty dealing with things that shouldn’t exist, like Old Lady Shelby’s ghost baby, heard wailing in her home’s basement during summer thunderstorms. She didn’t necessarily believe in life after death, but she had heard the ghost baby herself, searched the basement and found no rational explanation for the uncanny wails.

  Now she wondered if the wolf they had found—the animal with human blood and human teeth and human organs—had once been a lawyer from Atlanta.

  “We’ve got a hit,” Wallace said. “The fingerprint’s a match. Should we put out an APB on Thompson? We can prove he was at the scene. He may be a material witness.”

  “Yeah, get in touch with my office and tell Deputy Whitlock to issue the APB as soon as possible. Thanks, Wally. I’ll get back to you.” Annalee disconnected the call and let her head fall back against the seat rest. In a couple of days, the DNA results would be in. All hell was going to break loose if the wolf’s DNA matched Thompson’s.

  She had a suspicion that DNA from the deformed woman might match Ruth Lassiter. Ruth and Aiden had looked very cozy together the other day. What the hell happened to them? How had they become so…so changed? She felt like vomiting when she recalled the dead woman’s disfigurement.

  Dempsey was the key. He was messing around with DNA, a modern day Frankenstein playing God with people’s genes and turning them into monsters. He was as crazy as a shit-house rat, and she was fairly certain he was being bankrolled by Cutshall, who was old and sick and no doubt felt mortality nipping at his heels. Christian belief in “God’s golden shore” aside, an arrogant man like Cutshall had to resent his body’s betrayal. He probably clung to the hope of a cure for the destructive effects of aging.

  Annalee closed the car door and turned on the ignition, letting the air conditioner run full blast until a stream of chilled air finally hit her sweaty skin. She called Noah and asked after he answered, “Did we get statements from those two fishermen who called in the dead body on the Ateeska River yesterday?”

  “Yeah, but they didn’t see much. On the other hand, we found a witness who swears they saw a monster at the church.”

  Annalee sat up so quickly her knees knocked against
the steering wheel. She ignored the brief pain. “Who? What did they see?”

  “You know Dennis Dooley? Runs the chicken farm east of Hallelujah Ridge?”

  “The one they call Cock-a-Doodle Dooley?”

  “Uh-huh. Seems he was delivering a load of eggs to the restaurant next door. Saw a monster bust out of the church’s basement. Said no way it was human. His description is kind of a match to our female vic. A man came out of the church in pursuit, shot the thing with a tranquilizer dart and dragged it back inside. The shooter’s description is close to Dempsey’s.”

  “Now can we get a warrant to search the church?” she asked, knowing the answer.

  Noah’s laugh sounded bitter. “Not from any God-fearing judge in this county, not unless we’ve got a smoking gun. Close don’t get you no cigar. I told you before, the basement was empty when I checked it. No evidence of anything. If Dempsey is actually there this minute, we have no proof except a single eyewitness with shaky testimony. I already talked to DA Terrill—she says we make no move unless we have an absolutely positive ID.”

  “One witness won’t do.” Annalee curled her lip. “Okay, keep up surveillance on the church. Soon as Dempsey pokes the tip of his nose out of the door, you bring him in, even if you have to enter the church to do it. Sighting a suspect wanted for questioning in a homicide should be enough probable cause to stand up in court.”

  “Got it, boss. What are you going to do?”

  She knew what she needed to do, but she didn’t want to pay another visit to the Skinners. Not yet. Her gut told her the Skinner family was mixed up in this somehow, even Lunella, and she didn’t have the strength to face them. To face her.

  Eyes the color of flake gold. Annalee groaned.

  “Hey, you okay?” Noah asked.

  “Oh!” Annalee had forgotten she was still on a call. “Look, I’m headed back to the office. Have those witness statements ready for me.”