by Rick Wayne
I stared ahead at a tree line. White-barked birch trees with bands of black stood in an irregular row, marking the boundary of a forest. The interior was dark. It was nighttime. The only light came from the full moon reflected on the snow. I was squatting in a clearing, staring at the silent forest. Everything was still. There wasn’t even a hint of a breeze. I squinted into the darkness, between the branches. It was in there. I knew it. I couldn’t see anything, but I knew it was in there, looking back at me.
The wolf with three eyes.
I knew also that it had been stalking me through the still forest. I couldn’t see it. But I knew. I caught glimpses of its footprints in the snow from where it had walked out of the clearing and into the forest, which was still lush and green, despite being under a blanket of white. Here it was seemingly the dead of winter, yet none of the leaves on the trees have fallen. In fact, they were as bright and full as spring. It was beautiful, but also incongruous and disturbing. I think it meant it’s not too late.
But not too late for what?
When you have a potentially dangerous suspect, there’s always a bit of a judgment call on whether it’s better to talk to them first or go right for a warrant. As far as I knew, this guy Étranger had no idea what we were after. It was probably our only advantage. Once we questioned him, we’d be giving that up. The problem is, most judges, and therefore most DAs, want to see good evidence that a warrant is—well, warranted. It’s embarrassing for everyone, and a waste of a lot of time and money, to charge into somebody’s house or business only to find they had a verifiable alibi the whole time. Not to mention the constitutional issue. But here the question of an alibi was moot. No statement by the suspect could contradict the photographic evidence, which linked him to two missing persons on the very dates of their disappearances. In combination with the eyewitness report, any reasonable person would call that grounds for suspicion.
It would have been a slam dunk if not for the fact that the chef’s face was obscured in all of the security footage. Hammond and I knew a judge would want to see positive evidence—maybe not definitive proof, but certainly probable cause—that the man on both tapes was not only the same man but also our guy. Enter forensics. It’s a fascinating discipline. People really specialize. There are guys who know all about carpets, for example. They can look at some fibers under a microscope and tell you not only how old they are, but who the manufacturer was and at what retail outlets they were sold. You might think a fiber is a fiber is a fiber, or that all of them are round like a hair, but it’s not so. Some have a diamond-shaped cross-section, others a cross. And of course they’re all different diameters. Some carpets use all one type of fiber, others weave a specific ratio of different shapes and widths. Then there are the dyes—not just the color and chemical makeup, but how long the fibers were steeped and so how deeply the dye penetrated.
All that to say, there’s a gal at the FBI’s New York office who specializes in forensic anthropology. After looking at the security footage and the color pictures I’d snapped of the chef leaving the restaurant, she used some software to compare height and head shape of the men in all the pictures. Her brief, which she filed with the court, suggested that there was a 90% chance that they were all the same man.
I turned to Hammond. “You ready?”
He nodded and we got out of the car, which was the cue for the others to do the same. Three squad cars emptied and ten uniformed officers followed Hammond and me across the street to the bistro. He held up the folded warrant and directed two patrolmen to stay by the side exit and make sure no one left with anything. Another pair went around to check the back. We walked into the restaurant and I explained to the hostess that we had a warrant to search the loft above, as well as the offices and work space of the restaurant, and she needed to unlock the side door immediately. People are usually a little flustered in those kinds of situations, for obvious reasons. But she didn’t flinch, like this wasn’t the first time they’d been searched. Or even the second. Without a word, she led us around to the side and opened the door. It wasn’t even locked.
My phone rang as I followed Hammond up the stairs to the loft. I ignored it. He stopped abruptly at the giant head with stitched-closed eyes and I stepped around him into the apartment. The high brick walls displayed a menagerie of tasteless art.
“Search this room,” I ordered one of the patrolmen.
I went right for the double doors on the opposite side, but they opened on their own and the chef stepped out, bald head and all. I saw a hall behind.
“Can I help you?”
“Please step aside.” I moved toward the space behind him.
He politely held out his hand to stop me. “May I see some identification?”
I held up my badge.
“The police?” he asked, as if surprised.
“Would you please wait downstairs, sir?”
“Of course. But first may I see the warrant?”
I pointed him to Detective Hammond, who was answering his phone. His had rung right after mine went to voicemail. I had the sense that the chef was stalling, like he was delaying me just enough for something to happen. I moved him to the side with both hands. He didn’t resist. I strode down the hall toward a pair of block stone doors. I put my hand out to open them, but there were no handles. I pushed. They didn’t budge. I pushed harder.
I turned back to the chef, who was waiting for my colleague to finish what looked to be an urgent call.
“Sir, I’m gonna need you to open these doors.”
“Of course,” he said and started toward me. “May I ask what this is about?”
Fucker was so calm. That’s when I noticed the tattoos on his palms, like the remnants of some kind of gang ritual.
“Just please open the doors.”
“Of course,” he repeated. He raised his palms like he was going to start an incantation.
“Har, wait!” Hammond called.
He strode down the hall and handed his phone to me.
I listened patiently as Lt. Miller explained the situation. My face got red. Just like that, it was all falling apart—just as quickly as it had all come together.
Poof.
Like magic.
“Change of plans,” Hammond said to the others. “Let’s go. Everybody out.”
I hung up. I lingered.
“Hari!” he barked.
“Where’s Alexa?” I asked the chef.
He looked at me, expressionless. “I’m afraid I don’t know who that is.”
“I’m going to find her,” I said, stepping toward him. Hammond stopped me.
The chef nodded once. “Of that, I am certain.”
In the corner, the hostess was looking at me through the jewel that hung from her neck, like it was a magnifying glass or something.
“Har . . .” Hammond had the tips of his spread fingers pressed against my stomach. It gave him leverage without being touchy.
“I’m gonna find her,” I told the chef again.
Hammond pushed me back to the door. I didn’t resist.
“I’m gonna find her.”
Wy dress shoes click-clacked on the courthouse floor as I walked to the stairs and up to the third level. I exited the open stairwell and fought the urge to wipe the lipstick off my face with the back of my hand. I turned a corner and stopped in the middle of the hall. Sitting alone on a bench across from Conference 5C was none other Granny Tuesday, as if she were a witness for the prosecution. She was sitting by herself—scrawny legs poking from her unlaced boots, arthritic hands in her lap. She didn’t notice me, or if she did, she didn’t show it. She was too busy looking doe-eyed and innocent at a uniformed officer, a round African American woman who cooed over her like she was a child.
“Oh, yes, dearie,” Granny said. “I’m fine. I’m just resting these old legs before heading home.”
The officer smiled warmly and leaned to grasp Granny’s hand in friendly parting. The woman started coughing as I passed her i
n the hall. She was still coughing as she went down the stairs. I heard people nearby asking if she was okay. Then I heard her fall and a distant shouts for an ambulance.
I sighed.
I sat on the other side of Granny’s bench.
“A warrant . . .” Granny cackled quietly to herself.
“You say something?”
“A warrant.” She jeered at me, louder. “You been walkin’ between worlds so long, I think you’re all kinds a’ turned around. You’re lucky you was only thrown out. Next time you’re liable to have an accident on the way over and wind up in a coma.”
“Like all those people who live with you at the John D?”
She looked me up and down. Her eyes lingered on the lipstick. “What you all dressed up fer? Looks like you came from a funeral.”
“Not from,” I said. “You don’t know?”
She shook her head.
“Then how’d you know I’d be here?”
“Oh, that particular information came from a fine feline of your acquaintance. Seems you made an enemy of him, too.”
“Is that so?” I looked at my watch. Ten minutes to 1:00.
Like most cops, I prided myself on being able to spot a tail. But then, Graskul didn’t have one. And I can’t say I look out for cats.
“That was a nice trick with the totem,” Granny added, her voice near a whisper.
As a pair of officers passed consoling a grieving family. I didn’t recognize anyone. Down the hall, court was just getting out. Lawyers, plaintiffs, defendants, and all their hangers-on walked out in a bustle and headed for the stairs. One side was very unhappy. I couldn’t tell which.
“You didn’t think I’d actually give you back something that powerful, did you?” I growled.
“The thought crossed my mind, both ways. But don’t you worry. I’m gonna get you back fer it.”
“You gonna fight me, Granny? Right here in the courthouse?”
“Not at all. In fact, I’m gonna give you exactly what you want.”
“And what’s that?”
“The truth.”
“That what the oracles told you to do?”
She nodded.
“You always do what the oracles say?”
“Yup. Lucky for you, too.” She shifted in her seat like she was getting ready to leave. “A fella’s gonna come see ya, tell ya some things.”
“What fella?”
“That’s between you and him whether he wants to say his name or not. I know you won’t believe anything ol’ Granny says, so you’ll hear it right from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.”
There was a noise and Granny looked across the hall at the door to Conference Room 5C, which opened. A well-dressed Lt. Shawna Miller greeted me with a nod of her head.
“They’re ready for you,” she said.
I stood and stepped toward the door, which the lieutenant held.
“Just don’t say I never did nuthin nice for ya,” Granny said.
Miller looked confusedly at the old woman. Then to me as the door shut.
“Friend of yours?” she asked.
“Just some crazy old bitty,” I said.
I looked around the room. There were five in all, counting Miller. I didn’t recognize all of the others. Most were standing and talking, as if they’d just broken for a short recess. I was directed to sit at a table facing the committee members. Lt. Miller retrieved her files from one of the other tables and sat down next to me, presumably for support. I got the sense she didn’t have to do that. I’m not sure if it was a good sign or not.
Captain Morrison checked his watch before calling everyone to order. “We should probably get started.”
Caleb Morrison was a black man in his late 60s and the only one in formal uniform. He adjusted the pair of bifocals that hung from the end of his nose and poked at the stack of papers in front of him. In the far corner behind me was a TV on a rolling stand. I wouldn’t have noticed it except for the fact that it was attached to a VCR. How often do you see those anymore?
I crossed my hands neatly on the table and waited for them to come to order.
The door opened behind me. I turned to see Dr. More returning with a cup of vending machine coffee. He was wearing his wire-frame glasses. He didn’t look at me. He took the last open spot and stirred his coffee with the plastic straw bobbing in it.
“For the record,” Capt. Morrison began, speaking to me, “Dr. Caldwell has been filling in for Dr. More, who is on sabbatical. Indonesia, is it?”
“I believe so,” the doc said with a nod.
I stared.
I looked around the room. I looked to Lt. Miller.
“What is it?” she whispered.
I looked at the doc again. He was reading a report from his stack of files and sipping the coffee. He was definitely the man I knew as Dr. More. I’d been seeing him every other week for months. But everyone around the table seemed completely convinced that the captain was right and the man’s name was Caldwell.
For a moment I thought Shawna was in on it—whatever it was—but then I remembered she had never actually met the man. She’d only read his reports. She’d have no idea.
I looked to her again. Was I supposed to object? Was I supposed to stand up and proclaim like a crazy person this this was all wrong, that the person before me was not someone named Caldwell but in fact the errant Dr. More?
If so, he didn’t seem to expect it. He wasn’t even looking at me. For the moment, no one was.
“Harriet?” Lt. Miller whispered.
“Detective Chase,” Capt. Morrison addressed me formally, “I see you elected not to bring counsel. Is that correct?”
I was still staring at Dr. Caldwell—or whoever he was.
“Yes, sir.”
Caldwell looked up then. His eyes were blank, devoid of recognition. But there was something menacing about them all the same.
The captain went on. “In that case, do you have any opening remarks before the committee discusses its findings with you?”
“No, sir.”
Morrison nodded to one of the people I didn’t know, a bureaucrat-librarian type in a well-ironed skirt and two-inch pumps. She was sitting on the end near the TV. She got up and rolled it to the center of the room. Not everyone could see, but I could.
Lt. Miller explained. “Harriet, Forensics was able to reconstitute the crumpled tape that was mailed to you.”
I sat up. I pulled my hands from the table and put them in my lap.
“They were also able to get a match on the pinprick blood splatter.”
“Is it Alexa’s?” I asked.
“No.” She seemed hesitant to say. There was a long pause. “It’s yours.”
“Mine?” I asked, wide-eyed.
I looked to Dr. More—or Caldwell or whoever he was. He was judging my reaction, same as everyone else in the room.
“Are we sure? How would my blood get on a VHS tape?”
Capt. Morrison nodded again, and the librarian hit play.
The screen jumped with repeated bouts of lined static like you get from magnetic tapes. Then an image appeared—an off-white hospital room. There was a male doctor in a tie and several nurses, both male and female, in scrubs. Sitting on a chair in the middle of all of them, wearing nothing but a flower-print hospital gown, was me. Only I was young. Thirteen or so from the looks of it. My sandy hair was a longer than I remembered wearing it. It hung just past my jaw. It was wavier then. God, I was so damned scrawny.
“What is this?” I asked.
But I knew what it was. Footage from the year I spent in the care of the white coats.
“Are you still having the visions?” the doctor on the tape asked calmly. He looked Filipino.
I nodded. My bare toes squirmed on the floor and climbed over each other.
“What do you see?” he asked.
I shrugged.
“The wolf with three eyes?”
“Sometimes,” I said.
I sounded so you
ng!
“What else?” he asked.
“Just stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Monsters.”
“What kind of monsters? What do they look like?”
“Big.”
“How big? Like a bear?”
I shook my head.
“Bigger?” he asked. “Like a truck?”
I shook my head again.
“Big like a dinosaur?”
“Bigger,” I said.
“Bigger than a dinosaur?”
“Bigger than mountains,” I said softly.
“And what do these monsters do?”
“Eat people,” I said, eyes on the floor. “Chew them up. And make them do bad things.”
“And how many monsters are there?”
I glanced up at him. “Six.”
“Six monsters,” he repeated. “Bigger than mountains.”
I nodded.
“And what about the wolf? What does he do?”
“She wants me to follow.”
“Follow? Follow where?”
I shrugged. “Far away.”
“To escape the monsters?”
“No.” I shook my head vigorously and looked up again. “To fight them.” My child-self held his gaze this time.
“The wolf wants you to go fight the monsters?”
I nodded.
“And how will you do that if they’re bigger than mountains?”
I shrugged and looked down again, apparently disappointed by the response. “I have to learn.”
“And that’s where the wolf wants to take you? To learn?”
I nodded. “I think so.”
“Harriet . . .” He paused. “Do you think the monsters are real?”
I looked up again, confused. “What do you mean?”
“Do you think they’re real? The way I’m real and you’re real and nurse Bethan is real?”