As the Crow Dies

by Kenneth Butcher

  “Siren or no siren?” Segal asked as he jumped behind the wheel.

  “No siren,” Dinah said. “No use telling them exactly where we are.”

  “Right. I’m taking a shortcut to Charlotte Street, maybe make up time on them.” Segal was thinking his knowledge of the city might well be his only advantage in this chase. He careened onto Charlotte Street and turned left toward downtown. It was still very early so the street was nearly deserted. Segal drove like a werewolf.

  “Up there, Segal. Turning right,” Dinah yelled.

  He caught a glimpse of the van turning onto a side street. Segal sped up even more and screeched around the turn onto the same side street.

  “I never saw you drive like this, Segal,” Dinah said.

  “No one ever threw a hand grenade at me before.” Segal did not let up. “We’re going to get these guys.” The side street went level for a way, then angled down, allowing the van to disappear from Segal’s sight. By the time he came to the downhill slope, he caught the van turning left onto the next large street.

  “Left turn,” Dinah said. “Headed for the center of town. I expected them to jump onto the highway.”

  Segal cursed under his breath. “What the hell are they doing?” At the bottom of the hill, he paused for a garbage truck rolling ponderously by. When he got going, the van was out of sight. A few blocks farther on was another highway entrance.

  “Highway or downtown?” Dinah asked.

  “I say downtown. If they wanted the highway they would have stayed on the other street.”

  Segal followed the road under the highway and into the main downtown section of Asheville. There was no way to know for sure which way they went so he went straight, slowing at intersections so Dinah could check the side streets. They still had the roads to themselves, except for a few trucks making early morning deliveries to restaurants and bars.

  Dinah yelled, “Stop,” at the intersection with Walnut Street.

  “They’re trapped,” Segal said, angling the police cruiser to block the street.

  From where Segal sat at the intersection, Walnut Street ran up a steep hill to their right. At the next intersection, at the top of that hill sat a stake bed truck, like a farm truck used to move bales of hay. But instead of bales of hay, this truck was loaded with kegs of beer from one of the local microbreweries. It blocked the narrow street. Below this, the van was pulled off to the left into the exit space of a parking garage.

  “That is our van, isn’t it?” Segal said.

  Dinah nodded. She was on her phone calling for backup.

  He watched for a moment to see what the van would do. No movement. He made a decision, turned the engine off. “Let’s go.” Opening his car door, he slowly eased out, drew his gun. Dinah followed.

  He heard a door open but could not see what was going on. They each ducked for cover on opposite sides of the street expecting the guy to come around the other side of the van shooting.

  Instead, a man took a few strides up the hill, then vaulted up onto the bed of the beer truck and opened the back gate. At first, Segal was confused, thinking the driver was about to make a delivery. Then the man took out a combat knife and cut the nylon strap securing the kegs tilted inside the truck bed. Slowly, the kegs tipped and rolled off the truck. In seconds an avalanche formed. The street swelled with runaway beer kegs, jumping, colliding as they crashed down the steep pavement picking up momentum.

  “Look out, Dinah,” he yelled, but she was way ahead of him. She had pressed herself into a doorway, and Segal did likewise on his side of the street. He watched helplessly as the lethal metal cylinders careened by, slamming into their borrowed car. Each time Segal tried to lean out another hundred-and-thirty-pound missile came rolling and bouncing by.

  The first one to hit the cruiser demolished the right front panel and set off the airbags. The second hit front center, breaking the radiator and creating a fountain of coolant. The third and fourth bounced on one of the others and caved in the windshield, landing in the front seat as the others piled on.

  When Segal sensed that the last keg had come to rest, he emerged to look around. The van was still there, just off the street, but the driver’s door stood open now. Segal suspected they had abandoned ship. He was about to say as much when Dinah jerked her finger into the air at the steep side road and yelled, “The truck.”

  As a last measure, the guy had apparently released the parking brake and the truck was rolling backward fast, a speedball of steel streaking toward them.

  Segal screamed and Dinah jumped. The truck ran up over the cruiser, completely flattening the roof, wheels spinning, fender busted, smoke curdling the carriage as it ended up at rest on top of the borrowed police car.

  Sirens and lights announced the arrival of the backup Dinah had called for.

  Segal approached the van, Dinah and the backup officers by his side, pistols aimed. He was not hopeful. The van was empty.

  “You think they prearranged changing vehicles?” Dinah asked.

  “That would be my guess,” Segal said, rubbing dust from his eyes. “Or at least it was arranged as a contingency. They could have planted a car in the garage here. Or else met someone up the hill on Haywood Street.”

  Segal peered into the empty shell of the van. He would have the forensic techs go over it but had little hope of finding anything useful.

  “There’s no blood that I can see,” Segal said. He was checking out the side door which was where the man had fallen when Dinah shot him. “I know you hit him.”

  “Must have had a vest on,” Dinah said.

  “He’s gonna be pretty sore and pissed off,” one of the backup officers said.

  “Yeah, well I’m a little sore and pissed off myself,” Dinah answered.

  The scene was beginning to draw a crowd, more police cars, civilians, and a reporter. Segal’s boss rounded the corner, trudging up the hill toward them. Segal groaned. Meanwhile, the two patrolmen were dropped off by their crashed and flattened cruiser. Segal saw one of them reach in and pull something out. It was a lunch box flattened almost as much as the car.

  Segal gave Dinah a one-sided grin.

  “You want to talk to the chief or those two patrolmen?” Dinah asked.

  “Oh, I’ll take the chief,” Segal said. Dinah appeared to put on a game face and headed toward the men by the wrecked car.

  CHAPTER 19

  Nature Center

  Segal drove across the bridge over the Swannanoa River, glancing at shallow ripples above a sandy bottom. It was soothing, and he could use a little soothing after what he and Dinah had just been through. He drove past the public swimming pool and up the hill to the entrance of the Western North Carolina Nature Center. It was a long time since he’d been there, well before the troubled time in his life, and he found himself wanting to see the animals again—normal creatures, not the ones trained by Francis Elah, and not ones wrapped up in the murder case and maybe more.

  Inside the entrance, people waited in line to pay the fee, an operation that was apparently hugely complex. Segal flashed his badge at the person by the door. After considerable squinting on the door guard’s part and an assurance by Segal that he was there on official business, he was motioned through.

  After a step, he pivoted toward the guard. “Did you happen to see a lady with a girl in a wheelchair?”

  “You mean Mrs. Elah and Suzie? They should be down by the barnyard area by now, or close to it. They volunteer with some of the farm animals.”

  Segal passed the reptile house. Following the path down the hill, he passed the river otters. Two were in the water and a third lounged on a rock in the sun, licking its webbed paw. Segal watched the otter glance at him, then resume licking its paw. Segal sighed. He realized he could well be reading too much into the facial expressions of animals now. He walked on and came to a sign. The cats and wolves were on the trails that forked up the hill. The deer, bears, and farm animals were on the lower path.

  He foll
owed the path that led down the hill. This soon took him onto a wooden boardwalk high above the fenced area below. In the first of the enclosures, he saw half a dozen white-tailed deer grazing in a sunny area. He remembered Lucile Devroe’s pictures and noted that the ears really were much smaller than the mule deer’s. He moved to the second enclosure and searched high and wide before he saw a massive black bear pacing a worn path in the grass under a sparse grove of poplar trees. Generally, pacing seemed like a pathological response to confinement. In this case, Segal had the sense that the bear expected something to happen.

  He wasn’t sure where his intuition stopped and magical thinking took over.

  A group of people came up on his right. One of them asked if it was feeding time, and Segal heard a voice from his left. “Yes, the attendant will be here in a minute.”

  He turned to see Emily Elah pushing her daughter up in her wheelchair. They both wore dark blue wide-brimmed hats and tilted their heads to see him. The little girl seemed radiantly happy. Emily smiled toward the bear. “You should watch this, lieutenant. I think you’ll like it, and I think it will give you a better idea of what kind of work my husband does.”

  Below, the bear paced. He was also swinging his big head side to side, sometimes at the platform where Segal stood and other times at the steep wall of the enclosure against the side of the hill. After a minute or so, one of the park attendants appeared at the top of the back wall carrying a five-gallon bucket, which she set down beside her. As soon as she appeared, the bear stood on his hind legs and pointed at his wrist.

  “What’s he doing?” Segal asked.

  “It’s a wristwatch,” Emily Elah said.

  It was a perfect pantomime of a cranky man pointing to his watch to complain about his companion being late for a lunch date. The park ranger made a big production of apologizing, then lowered the food. Surprisingly, the bear waited for the bucket to reach the ground before he sat, pulled the bucket between his outstretched legs, and began to eat out of it. He put the food in his mouth with enjoyment and interest but without any savage hurry. The scene reminded Segal of a fat boy at a family picnic. After the bear ate most of the food, he grasped the bucket between his two paws and tipped it to his mouth, presumably to get the last morsels.

  “And your husband, Francis, he taught the bear to do that?” Segal asked.

  “It only took him a few days,” she said, still watching the animal.

  “Amazing.”

  “That’s what I said, but Francis just shrugged it off and said the bear was highly motivated by food.”

  “Still …”

  Emily nodded. “That’s the last time they let him work with any of the animals here. Something about not respecting the dignity of the wildlife. Personally, I think he respects the animals more than anyone.”

  Segal returned his attention to the bear, who licked his lips and muzzle with a circular motion of his tongue before returning to all fours to check the surrounding terrain for any stray scraps. Emily had said this would help him understand her husband. Segal had trouble drawing any specific inferences from the bear with the wristwatch. It was difficult for him to imagine the man who did something this whimsical, suddenly transforming into the stone-cold killer ONI presented him to be. An image of Guilford with his snotty nose and tissues and perfect brown shoes flashed into his mind.

  “Do you want to come with us? It’s time for Suzie to feed the goats,” Emily said.

  Segal followed them down the ramp toward the barnyard area. Suzie turned her head to watch the bear as long as possible. Her face was a tiny moon beneath her hat. Segal followed suit. The bear was seated, his back propped against a tree, the picture of contentment. If there had been a couch and a TV with a football game on, the bear would have qualified for the American Male of the Year Award.

  After a couple of minutes, the barnyard came into view. Emily got a bucket of feed from inside a shed. She hefted the feed over to the side of the fence, put the bucket on the ground and positioned Suzie’s chair against the fence so she could feed the goats from the palm of her hand. Emily withdrew a few steps. Segal did the same. He watched the girl feed the goats, listened as she talked to them in a soothing voice.

  “I don’t suppose you came out here to feed goats and bears today, lieutenant,” Emily said. Her dark blue hat tilted dramatically over one eye.

  Segal cleared his throat. He told Emily the latest bad news from Creatures 2.0, about Gloria. Emily inhaled sharply, cupping her hands over her nose and mouth, and turned away. Segal realized the little girl had stopped talking. He saw she was watching them. He smiled at her and thought again, Suzie was not to be taken for granted. Suzie resumed feeding the goats.

  Emily put her hand on Segal’s arm. “What’s going on?” she asked in a hushed voice.

  “I was hoping maybe you could shed some light on that.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, louder.

  Suzie let the food fall from her hand. The goats nudged her wrist.

  Segal walked a few steps with Emily.

  “You can see the implications here,” he said. “Charles Atley is killed. We don’t know if it was some random event or what. Now, someone else from Creatures 2.0 is dead, murdered, and in the lab on top of that. I have to rule out the random element and focus on the connections with Francis, or at least with his work.” Segal kept his voice low and calm, and when he checked on Suzie in his peripheral vision, she was giggling, feeding the goats. He chose not to elaborate on the truck and van adventures of the morning.

  Emily shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I really don’t get involved with Francis’s work. I can’t think why anyone would kill Gloria. Especially Gloria. She was a receptionist and secretary. I don’t think she was involved with the projects, other than working on notes and reports.”

  “Well, it’s possible she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. We think someone broke in, possibly to steal something valuable, something they knew was inside—not a random theft—and she walked into the middle of it.”

  Emily clutched his arm. “Are we in danger? Is Suzie in danger?”

  “If what you say is right, I doubt it. If this has something to do with Creatures 2.0, and if you don’t know anything, then I would say you’re probably in the clear. On the other hand, I would be careful if I were you. Please call me if you see anything strange. In any case, we’re putting more protection for you at the Grove Arcade.”

  Emily took a deep breath.

  “The other issue is Francis. You haven’t heard from him since we talked last, have you?” Segal asked.

  “I haven’t seen or heard from him. I can’t seem to convince your friend from ONI of that.”

  Segal started to ask her about Jerome Guilford but paused when Suzie spoke up. “I did. Daddy visited me,” she said. She never took her eyes off the goats. “He hugged me and kissed my head.”

  Segal crossed his arms in front of him, gently shrugging off Emily’s vice grip. “When did he visit you?”

  “Last night. When Mommy was at the roller derby.” The tone of her voice was matter-of-fact. Segal couldn’t tell if she was describing something that happened in real-time or a dream of what she wanted to happen. Emily shrugged. Without his arm to lean on, she seemed to readjust and push her hat until both of her eyes were shaded.

  CHAPTER 20

  Vampire Movie

  “Tell me again, what this film is about?” Dinah asked.

  The young man leaned across the table in the chocolate lounge on Pack Square. He darted his head side to side, swung in his chair toward the rear of the lounge, twisted with a grimace, and brushed a dark shock of hair from his left eye. Taking in a troubled breath, he paused and spread his hands and bowed his head.

  “Okay, there’s this vampire loose in Asheville,” he said.

  “Yup.”

  “I mean scary.”

  “Yup.” Dinah let him talk. She sipped her coffee during the preamble. Let it be his s
how. After three minutes she set her empty cup down and mouthed to the waitress for more coffee. She raised a forefinger to interrupt. “I read someplace vampires are out of vogue.”

  “Some people say that. But vampires are always in. There are just different parts of the vampire cycle. See, we had traditional vampires going back to Bela Lugosi. Then came Anne Rice. That was a reinterpretation of the vampire—The Vampire Lestat, for instance—where the vampire is the protagonist. That opened the door to the whole teenage vampire craze that turned on the coming-of-age/sexual development themes.”

  “You mean like the vampire versus werewolf stuff?” Dinah asked.

  The young director nodded.

  “You’re doing something like I Was a Teenage Vampire?”

  “No. Definitely not.”

  “Okay. Explain.”

  “We’re going into the next phase. That phase explores historical figures as vampires.” He pushed the dark shock of hair from his eyebrows.

  “You mean like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter?”

  “Yeah, and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” he said. “Only those two were kind of tongue-in-cheek, making fun of the genre. This film is more serious and brings the sexual element back—which, in my opinion, why do vampire without the sexual element? For that matter, why do any movie without a sexual element?”

  “And who is the historical figure?”

  “Thomas Wolfe.” The director smiled and took a drink of his coffee and a bite of chocolate biscotti. He crunched loudly.

  “Thomas Wolfe? Our Thomas Wolfe, the writer?”

  “Yeah. The working title is Look Homeward, Vampire.”

  More biscotti. More crunching.

  Dinah let it soak in. It never ceased to amaze her what people could get funding for. The director told her he had investors—six million, which apparently was peanuts for movie making. She summarized. “Dracula comes to Asheville, huh?”

  “Sooner or later, everyone comes to Asheville,” the director said. “Starts with a mysterious visitor coming to his mother’s boarding house.”