by Geonn Cannon
“And the tapestry? Your mother said you seemed interested in it.”
“Mm-hmm, I asked her which of us would get it. I’m sure we all brought it up at some point, but we didn’t really think about it. You know how you have something hanging in your house for years and eventually, one day, you just stop seeing it? That’s how it was with Crossing-Over Place. It was just part of the scenery. Part of me wanted it, but where do you hang something that big? If I’d gotten it, I also would have probably just donated it to the museum.”
Ari said, “Would your siblings do the same?”
“Oh, they’d get rid of it, but they wouldn’t donate it. They would want the biggest payday possible.” She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head the opposite way. “Take that with a grain of salt, though. They’ll probably say the same thing when my back is turned.”
“Seems like there’s a lot of bad blood in the family.”
“God, how much time do you have?” Eleanor shook her head. “Every family has struggles, Miss Willow. When money isn’t an issue, the struggle turns inward. We were our own worst enemies. Including Mom! I’m sure she seemed like a sweet, wonderful woman when you met, but she could be vicious when she wanted to be.”
Ari said, “I don’t doubt it.”
“We’re much better one-on-one. Dad was something of a calming influence on all of us. When he died, everything sort of imploded. Of course, Mom was also angry because that was when the wheelchair came into play. Losing your husband and your freedom at the same time... she took it hard. Who wouldn’t, really.”
“Right. And I guess I don’t have to apologize since you basically just admitted you were a suspect, but where were you on Monday night?”
She smiled. “The same place I was Sunday and Tuesday. Downstairs at the bar, then up here to work on some projects I have going.” Her face changed and she raised a finger. “No, that’s wrong. On Monday, I went out for dinner. Tulio, just down the street. I was back in the hotel room well before ten, but I can try to find the receipt if you’d like.”
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary right now. But don’t throw it away.”
“Noted.”
“I’ll let you get back to your evening. And I’d like to ask you to not discuss our conversation with your brother and sisters. It’s better if I can bring it up without them knowing in advance.”
Eleanor winked. “Noted. Standard detective stuff.”
Ari had to laugh at that.
She showed herself out and called Dale while she was waiting for the elevator.
“Hey, puppy. Did you beat a confession out of Eleanor?”
“Yeah, my knuckles are all bloody and bruised. She’s gonna think twice about crossing me again.” She nodded to the older man who had stepped off the elevator just as she said the last part. He was still staring in shock as the doors closed on her. “Did you find anything on the tape?”
“I went all the way back to the moment Vivian left her house. And then I went back a little farther just to be sure. Whoever that was either spent a really long time inside, or somehow got around the camera. Maybe he approached from a different direction.”
“Eleanor thought it was a ‘he,’ too.”
“You don’t think so?”
“I think I have more female suspects than male, so I was kind of hoping it was a woman. But I think you’re right. It looks like a man.”
“Maybe one of the sisters hired someone to stake the place out. Or, hey, maybe one of them is a gender shifter. We’ve met one of them before.”
“Yeah,” Ari said, but she didn’t sound convinced. “Right now, I’m off the clock, and so are you. Home for dinner, or do you want to go out?”
“Going out means no dishes.”
Ari said, “Out it is. I’ll swing by and pick you up. I’ll take you somewhere nice.”
“But not so nice I have to go home and change clothes.”
“Fair enough. Talk to you soon. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Ari hung up and stepped outside. The sun had gone down, and the city lit up to take its place. The night was just chilly enough that she didn’t need a jacket. It was a beautiful night, and it was a good case. They’d been paid very well, and in advance, and the only person who died had done it by choice. Still, she couldn’t help but feel sad. The Burroughs had obviously left a lot of things unsettled even knowing Vivian’s end was near. She’d healed so many old wounds with her mother, she was terrified of reopening them, souring what they’d built.
She shook off the melancholy and walked back to her car. Her mood was nothing that couldn’t be fixed by spending a night with the love of her life, who was waiting patiently for Ari to come get her.
Chapter Seven
Ari took Dale to Sizzle Pie for dinner, where they shared half a pizza and took the rest home for lunch the next day. When they got home, Dale put the leftovers in the fridge only to turn around and have Ari pressing her against the counter. Ari could taste the orange-y, pine-y aftertaste of the IPA Dale had with dinner. Dale’s surprised paralysis faded, and she brought her hands up to slide them under the untucked hem of Ari’s shirt.
“This isn’t the wolf,” Ari said between kisses.
“Good,” Dale said, sliding her lips over Ari’s cheek. “I don’t care... but good to know.”
Ari had gotten Dale’s shirt off and exposed one shoulder, bending to kiss the cool skin. Her breath warmed one spot, so her tongue guided her to another as Dale’s hands stroked the skin on either side of Ari’s spine.
“This is about... mortality. Thinking about... Vivian, and the choice she made. Just feeling good to be alive. You know?”
“I know.” Dale’s hands drifted lower and came back around to the catch of Ari’s pants. “I get it. Really, I do. I just wish you’d stopped me from having that third slice of pizza...”
Ari smiled and pulled Dale to her. They ended up on the floor, where most of their clothes remained when they moved to the couch. Though they shifted positions several times, Ari was on top when they finally caught their breath. She put her head on the pillow next to Dale’s head and pressed her face into the tangles of her hair. Dale held her hand flat and ran it over Ari’s shoulder, down to close her fingers around the bicep and squeezed. Ari flexed.
“Strong puppy.”
Ari moved her head down and nibbled on Dale’s neck.
“Change for me.”
“You’re not supposed to ask your partner to change,” Ari whispered, moving up to her earlobe. “You’re supposed to accept them the way they are. God, I love the way you taste...”
Dale moaned. “You know what I meant. I can feel the wolf. Your muscles are twitching under the skin. She wants to run, too. She’s got that mortality itch. She needs to run like you just did. Change. I want you to change while I’m holding you.”
Ari lifted her head and kissed Dale’s lips. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Ari kissed her again, harder this time. While she could transform whenever she wanted, she couldn’t control the process. Sometimes it felt like her whole body changed at once, and other times it was a slower tip-to-tail scenario. Tonight she wanted her face to go last, so she held the kiss with the belief that the longer she was using her mouth, the longer it would stay human. She felt Dale’s foot on the back of her calf, and the length of her thigh against her hip. Ari rolled her hips forward and pressed herself between Dale’s legs as her body squeezed in on itself, becoming more slender.
Her stomach rolled and twisted, and she itched as her skin became thicker. Hair sprouted on her back and shoulders. Dale squeezed her arm again and Ari could feel the muscles twitching now. Her fingers were like divining rods, twitching rapidly and curling into fists.
“Love you,” Ari said.
“Love you.”
Ari arched her back and closed her eyes. She pushed herself up, her lower body twisting because her legs were positioned wrong. They had been much longer w
hen she lay down, and now it was awkward. She jumped off the couch and shook herself, head down and shoulders up. She stretched out and yawned. There was something... she’d been doing a... there was a smell. A girl. Her girl! She spun to look at the couch, where Dale was smiling down at her.
Dale, flushed skin, freckles, pink nipples, sweat on her breasts and arms and legs. Dale smiling. Ari yipped. Dale cupped the wolf’s face with both hands and kissed her between the eyes.
“My beautiful wolf.”
Ari licked Dale’s face, which made her laugh, which made Ari happy. Dale smelled like sex but also like Ari, which Ari liked, very much. She licked Dale again, and Dale climbed off the couch. She wrapped a blanket around herself. She went to the door, she opened the door, and outside smells rushed in through the door. Ari stood up straighter and hurried forward, but she stopped next to Dale. She looked up, hopeful. She made a hopeful sound in her throat.
“I can’t go with you. I’d get arrested if I went out like this.” She tucked her hair behind her ears and crouched down. “I’m not canidae. But I’ll be here if you need me to come find you, puppy. Always.” She gave Ari’s face another kiss, then jerked her head toward the door. “Go on. Get your wilds out.”
Ari didn’t have to be told again. She bounded out, up the stairs, and into the yard. She smelled the ground and tried to think. Where to go, where to go. Some places smelled like fish and some places smelled like people or gasoline. She didn’t like that last one, but there were so many around. Sometimes there was food to eat and not all of it spoiled, some of it old, but a lot of it good. But her belly was full, full of pizza and pepperoni, which was very good. It was greasemeat and it was heavy in her belly. She was happy she’d done that when she was a person, it was a Nice Thing.
Then she remembered the person was working on something. The person had a problem. The person needed wolf. The wolf thought about that, thought about how many nights she’d gotten to run as long and as far as she wanted. The person was being nice to her, so she wanted to be nice to the person. She would help with the problem.
So she ran. She ran through the playground, and through a backyard, to the alley. She smelled where someone had barbequed and she smelled fresh trash that had just been thrown out. She got a little lost and ended up in a park, which she thought was great but tonight she had a mission. Her person was always going in long boring straight lines to get to places. It was so much better to cut across, to jump and climb and scurry. It took a little longer sometimes, but it was so worth the effort.
She eventually got where she needed to be: the Burroughs house, and its backyard with smelly weeds and grass that went shuffle under her paws as she moved through it. She stood on the sidewalk and looked around, smelled for familiar people, looked for watching watchers, but there was no one in the dark. So she went up to the house. It was big and dark. It felt empty. The back porch was long and curled around the side of the house. It was very dark up there but she could see big windows and heavy-looking doors. There was a swing on the porch with cushions that smelled vaguely like people and cigarettes. She smelled oil, from the wheelchair.
Wheelchair. She stopped, lifted her head. Thought.
There were steps on the front porch. Steps at the end of the walk which led down to street level. How did Vivian get in and out of the house? No ramps, where were the ramps? The wolf rounded the house and found a side entrance which, according to the person’s memory, would lead into the kitchen. This door had a ramp down to the grass! But there was a retaining wall around the whole property. About two feet. Easy enough for a wolf to leap or a person to step up onto, but someone in a chair would need help to get to any car waiting at the curb.
There was a tape, video, pictures of Vivian leaving the house. Surely that would solve the mystery, but the wolf wanted to help and she was already here. She went around to the front of the house to look at the stairs themselves. She only had to sniff around a little bit to find the answer to her question. There were two long aluminum tracks attached to the top of the stairs, extending down to the walkway. They weren’t permanently installed, so there was a good chance they just hadn’t been in place when her person came to visit.
The wolf nudged the track with her nose. They were sturdy, stable, good. She felt bad. She wanted to solve a problem for her person, but this was a very small thing and something the person would have figured out on her own. She felt like a failure, which made her sad and disappointed. She went back to the side door and sniffed around the grass. The ground was hard and dry so no footprints. People had used this door recently, but that wasn’t a big reveal either.
Frustrated. Irritated. The wolf paced.
Something clattered in the house.
She spun around, ears perked, breath held, fully alert. No lights anywhere in the house. There had been cars parked on the street, but they could have been for the neighbors. She moved toward the back of the house, stealthy now, low to the ground and keyed in to any sounds coming from within. Now she focused on the ground and smelled for signs of recent passage. Someone had passed through the backyard very recently. She could smell him now, and it was definitely a him. The boy Burroughs. Jeremy or Justin or... Preston! She was proud she remembered his name. She surveyed the yard. He came from the east, which was just barely outside the range of Fitz Whatever’s security camera. The trees along the curb would have blocked him from view when he stepped onto the lawn and headed to the side door, which was on the opposite side of the house from Fitz’s.
The wolf moved into the shadows and hunkered down. Waited. A rabbit! No, focus. No rabbits. She drew on the person’s patience to keep herself from rushing off. This was Important. She watched the windows. Time passed. A stray cat got too close and, when it saw her, it turned to stone and arched its back. Get out of here cat your lucky night cat, GO ON. The cat zipped away. The wolf grunted and put her head back down.
Hours. But then! The side door opened. Out he came, dressed in a big coat and a hat. He was holding his left arm across his torso like he was pinning something against his body under the coat. He looked toward the street and then moved toward the backyard. He didn’t see the wolf. She waited until he was in the street before she left her hiding spot and gave chase.
She heard her person in her head. Hunt is okay. Kill is not. She knew this, but sometimes it was good to remember. Sometimes she was a bit more of an animal. She’d never hurt anyone, but it only took one time before things could get very bad for both her and her person.
Hunting was fun even without the kill. She followed, she stayed out of sight, she sneaked, while he went west and west and west and west. The road was mostly straight with some curves, so it was easy for her to keep him in sight without hurrying or getting too close. Finally, he turned. He went south. The wolf hurried so she wouldn’t lose him. She didn’t know if there were side streets or he might go into a building. But when she reached the corner, there he was, still walking.
She had no idea how much distance they had covered. She was moving at a person’s pace, which seemed plodding, but she guessed it was about half a mile. She also didn’t know what time it was, but there were only a handful of people out and about. Delivery trucks mostly. They were fun to chase. She refrained. She had Work.
Finally, he stopped at a corner shop: brick, with outdoor seating. The front was all windows, all shiny and gold-yellow with light from inside. The wolf was cautious because it was close enough to dawn now, and she was near enough businesses that someone might spot her. But also the man she was following might spot her, and she didn’t want that. There was a fence around the patio and she moved in close and looked through the window.
Preston Burroughs had taken a table near the front door. He unraveled a wire from his coat pocket, bent down to plug it into an outlet, and then plugged the other end into his phone. He was still wearing the dress shirt from that morning, but the tie was gone. He needed to shave. He took out a small backpack and, with a look over his shoulder to see
if anyone was watching him, began to go through it. He never took anything out so she could see what it was, but she assumed it was pawnable items from his mother’s house.
After he went through what he’d taken, Preston closed the bag and put it in the center of the table. Then he crossed his arms over it, put his head down, and pressed his face into the crook of his elbow. Sleeping at a table in a coffee shop. The wolf remembered that, remembered her person wandering at nighttime and finding places that didn’t mind if she napped a little in their booths.
That thought reminded her of home, the bed she had, the woman waiting in it. Dale, her girl. She’d done what needed to be done. She stretched and went across the street. She was very close to the office and she knew the way home from there, could run it in her sleep. So off she went, down an alley, across a parking lot, through a fenced-in construction area.
Eventually she was back in the neighborhood, with all its familiar smells. Dawn was close, very close. Some of the houses she passed had signs of life behind the windows. People were making breakfast or getting kids up for school. The wolf cut into the backyard of her house and went down the stairs, pausing on the landing in front of their door. She lowered her head and closed her eyes.
First her right shoulder popped up and out, then the left, and her body unfolded with a quiet “crack.” Her fur receded and her mouth stretched strangely as her jaw repositioned itself. She dropped one paw on the ground and finger unfolded, and she stretched one leg out behind her with a series of almost inaudible pops.
Ari stumbled when she stood, putting one hand against the wall to steady herself. She blinked and looked at the door. The wolf had taken her all the way home for a change.
She let herself inside and walked on the balls of her feet to the bedroom. Dale was curled up on her side of the bed, dressed in a long T-shirt. Ari knelt down next to her and only then saw that Dale was holding her phone. Waiting for the call. Ari smiled and slipped the phone out of Dale’s loose grip and twisted to put it on the charger. When it was plugged in, she cupped Dale’s cheek.