The Wolf at the Door

by Charlie Adhara

  “Dad—”

  “Here you could think about settling down, having a family. No more traveling. A good, stable life with—”

  “I really got to go, Dad. Can we talk about this later? Next weekend.”

  His father sighed and Cooper could picture him leaning back in his desk chair, in an office a lot like Chief Brown’s, pulling on the graying hairs of his mustache, his face disappointed. “’Course, Coop. You think about it.”

  After he hung up the car seemed oppressively silent. Cooper wanted to say something, anything to move past the moment and stop thinking of the phone conversation. To stop Park from thinking of the phone conversation.

  Had he sounded as pathetic as he felt? He tried to imagine Park sidestepping, avoiding and lying to his own father. Not fucking likely.

  “Parents, right?” he said weakly. “No one knows you better and no one understands you less.”

  Park regarded him from the corner of his eye with an odd look, and Cooper nearly bit off his tongue realizing his mistake. “Shit, I didn’t—That was a dick thing to say.”

  “It’s fine,” Park said. His face remained expressionless, but the tone of his voice, dismissive acceptance, seemed to imply it wasn’t anything less than what he expected.

  “No. It’s not,” Cooper said firmly. “My mom died when I was a kid, so...” He didn’t know where he was going with that. He had just suddenly wanted Park to know he wasn’t alone. Or whatever. “So, I mean, I know it’s not fine,” he finished lamely.

  Park glanced at him again. His gaze softened slightly and he looked almost puzzled and unsure before shaking his head and staring back at the road. After an awkward pause, he thankfully changed the subject. “So...your father wants you to follow in his footsteps.” Well, at least he had the decency not to pretend he hadn’t heard anything. It would have been hard for a human not to catch his dad’s reverberating voice in the closed car. Never mind a wolf.

  “Yeah, law enforcement, three generations. I’m sort of the black sheep.” Cooper laughed, then stopped when he realized how bitter he sounded.

  “You’re still in law enforcement.”

  “Not like them, apparently.”

  “Does he know what the BSI is?”

  “That it’s an offshoot of the FBI? Yeah. The rest of it? No. We’re not allowed to talk about it, obviously.”

  Park hummed. Cooper realized he did that a lot. A deep grumbling sound that was almost a response in itself. “No, not supposed to. But I’m sure some do. With their loved ones, anyway.”

  Cooper shrugged. He didn’t doubt it. But he’d never told his dad or Dean about what the BSI really did. It had never even crossed his mind. Sure, he wished they respected him more, but telling them about wolves wasn’t the effective way to go about it.

  “They—my dad and brother—wouldn’t want to know,” he said.

  “No? I would have thought you were an advocate for full disclosure,” Park said, referencing the controversial movement that wolves come all the way out. To the whole public. The idea being that everyone had a right to know that werewolves lived amongst them for their own safety.

  Cooper heard a lot of whispering about it around the office and thought the whole thing sounded like a recipe for disaster. Why would Park think he’d be a full-disclosure supporter? He doubted the answer would be flattering and wasn’t sure he was up for asking.

  “They’re the sort of guys happy believing what they’ve always believed. Most people are. I’m not saying it’s a good thing to be. But disrupting that would just start a panic. Panicked people do stupid, violent things. No one would be happier. Or safer,” he added.

  Park had on that slightly surprised and thoughtful expression again, and Cooper became uncomfortably aware that he sounded a lot like a fucking Trustee, choosing wolf safety and right to privacy over his own family. It was an uncomfortable thought to have. He certainly didn’t know why he was discussing it with Park of all people. How had they started talking about this?

  “Tell me why you don’t think Sam Whittaker is our guy.”

  “I didn’t say that, did I?” Park said, easily accepting the abrupt change in topic.

  “No. But you were thinking it. I’m sensitive, remember?”

  Park flashed a rare full smile. The scar on his upper lip disappeared. “I’m just not ready to jump to any conclusions before we find a connection between Whittaker and Kyle Bornestein.”

  Cooper shrugged again. He was sure they’d find a connection between Whittaker and the other victims soon enough.

  Finally, they pulled into the mobile park and located Bornestein’s trailer. It was a bit more ragged than the other homes around it. No tiny gardens or porch ornaments for #32. Cooper got the distinct feeling they were being watched as he fit the key into the door under the yellow crime scene tape. He glanced over his shoulder but didn’t see anyone.

  “Nosy neighbors will be nosy,” Park said, and twitched an eyebrow to confirm they were being observed. He wasn’t looking over his shoulder but, Cooper supposed, he wouldn’t need to.

  They walked into the trailer and Cooper’s eyes took a moment to adjust. Then he saw all the eyes looking right at him.

  “Jesus fuck.” Cooper stumbled back and slammed into a very warm and solid Park.

  Park steadied him with one hand on his hip and flipped the trailer light on with his other. “S’okay. They’re dead,” he said.

  Cooper shivered, which could have been a reaction to Park’s voice, close enough that it tickled his ear, or the number of stuffed animals all staring in various degrees of horror at them. Not the cute and cuddly kind—the taxidermy kind.

  He realized he was still pressed firmly against Park, back to chest, ass to crotch. He felt blood rush to his face and yanked away. “I know. I just don’t like...” Dead animals, he was going to say but realized how wimpy that sounded. “Fuckery like this.”

  “Not many do,” Park said, eyeing a snarling raccoon with vague distaste. “Shall we split up?”

  It was a pretty standard single-bedroom home with the bedroom and bathroom to the left, a kitchen to the right and a living area taking up most of the middle. It was a lot dingier than Gould’s house. Dingier than Gould’s bedroom, even. Where there weren’t dead stuffed critters on display, there were muddy boots, fishing poles, crossbows and rifles stacked neatly in a gun case. Unloaded, thank god. Cooper checked each one. Florence didn’t need any more tragedy if it could help it.

  Cooper started in the bedroom. Flannel sheets, a stack of porn DVDs by the bed, a couple of empty cans of beer on the floor and, of course, more animals.

  Most were small game like fox, rabbits, birds, a couple of big fish mounted on the wall. But there were buck heads too, and what looked like a coyote in the corner. In Cooper’s opinion the amount of taxidermy had crossed the line from that of an enthusiastic hunter into Norman Bates territory.

  He wandered into the living room. Taking up most of the space was expensive, top-of-the-line weight-lifting equipment. Against the wall was a bureau with a stereo, the old sort with no AUX plugin for an mp3. The CD tray was empty. Cooper turned the stereo on. Talk radio blasted through the room.

  He left it on and sat down on the weight bench.

  “I’m a twenty-eight-year-old male,” Cooper whispered, hoping the radio was loud enough to cover his voice from Park. “I live alone. I don’t clean because I don’t get visitors. But I’m neat with what I care about, my guns. They’re important to me. The most important thing I have here. Why?”

  Cooper lay back on the bench. The faux leather smelled fresh and new. More chemical, less dried sweat. He reached up to wrap his hands around the barbell. Large seventy-five-pound weights had been left on. One hundred fifty pounds in total.

  “I work out at home. No one here to spot me. Because I’m not good with people. Considered a loner. But I am
good at hunting. Thus the guns, thus the dead animals. Trophies. Trophies equal respect. Need to be surrounded by them always. Because I crave respect. I don’t get it anywhere else. That would make me angry. Frustrated.”

  Cooper sighed and let the argumentative voice on the radio wash over him. Yelling at no one. Something about change. Change is bad. Who’s changing our country? A dour-sounding woman phoned in to suggest “those people.”

  Cooper shook his head, stood and turned the radio off. And some people thought full disclosure of wolves’ existence was a good idea. The world was struggling to protect marginalized peoples from ignorance, hate and fear as it was. How would the hysterical masses ever accept werewolves who could legitimately hurt them?

  He followed the clawing scent of rotting food to the kitchen.

  Park was standing over a small table covered in open mail with a frown on his face. Cooper wondered if having enhanced senses was ever actually a negative thing. If so, this kitchen could certainly qualify as a trigger.

  “Judging from the open display of porn and cleanliness of the sheets, I don’t think Bornestein had company that often. I couldn’t find anything connecting him to Gould. Or Whittaker,” Cooper added a little grudgingly. Not that that proved or disproved shit. “You got anything?”

  “Looks like Bornestein went on a bit of a spending spree recently,” Park said, tapping the mess of receipts and bills on the table, a credit card statement on top.

  “Any sign he bought a TV or computer?”

  “Nope. Just gym equipment and lots of hunting gear. Why?”

  “I couldn’t find either in the house. But he’s got DVDs. That’s weird, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe he watched them at a friend’s.”

  “Sluts R Us? What kind of aperitifs do you serve with that?”

  “Pigs in a blanket?” Park suggested with a blank face.

  Cooper rolled his eyes. “Are you done here?” He was anxious to get out, back into some fresh air. All the sightless eyes and glorified death was making him jumpy.

  “Something bothering you, Agent Dayton?”

  “Nope. Just want to solve this case. And go home and hug my very live cat.”

  “Should have known you were a cat person.”

  “Why, because I don’t like you?” Cooper muttered as Park left the trailer.

  Park called over his shoulder, “Because you’re an antisocial asshole.”

  Cooper laughed despite himself. He followed Park out and locked up Bornestein’s house. When he turned, Park was knocking on the home facing Bornestein’s.

  Cooper hurried to catch up. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

  “Canvassing.” Park blinked at him with faux innocence. “Nosy neighbors will be nosy. Remember?”

  “Canvas—we don’t even—”

  The door opened and a scraggly-looking man in his late twenties looked out suspiciously from behind the screen door. “What do you want?”

  Cooper shook off his aggravation. “Sir? My name is Special Agent Dayton with the BSI, and this is my colleague, Agent Park. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions about your neighbor Kyle Bornestein?”

  “BSI? Yeah, right. You think I’m stupid? The hell is that? Bull Shit Incorporated?” The man crossed his hairy arms.

  “We’re a branch of the FBI,” Cooper said patiently.

  “Oh really?” The man laughed, looking him up and down.

  Cooper struggled not to fidget. He was sure he looked like a mess. It had been a long morning of drinking bad coffee in the evidence room with no air-conditioning, too many car rides and rooting through Gould’s pungent closet. Christ. Never mind Bornestein’s kitchen—what the hell must he smell like to Park now? Stupid thought.

  “Yes, really,” Cooper said forcefully.

  “Well, I’ve never heard of you,” the man snapped, and started to close the door.

  “Mr. Montgomery?” Park interrupted, and the man froze. “Mr. Thomas Montgomery?”

  “How do you know my name? Wiretapping? Going through my mail? That’s a federal crime, which you’d know if you were really FBI,” he said.

  “Not at all, Mr. Montgomery. I promise you, your name came up through a...different avenue.”

  Cooper raised an eyebrow. He had no idea what Park was talking about, but it sure sounded ominous and Montgomery was looking nervous.

  “Now, we’re not here to follow up on your homegrown pot business,” Park continued in a pleasant but commanding voice that somehow sounded more menacing than if he’d been yelling. “We simply don’t have the time.” He gave a big shrug. “We’ll be too busy pursuing all the information you’re going to give us. At least, I think we will be,” he added, looking between Montgomery and Cooper with an exaggerated expression of confusion.

  It was over-the-top, almost campy and so unexpected Cooper had to bite down a smile. To cover it up he gave his best bad-cop sneer and crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t know, Park, I got a lot of free time opening up.”

  “Ruh-roh,” Park said, face twisted in worry. Cooper coughed.

  “All right, all right. You don’t have to be assholes about it. What do you want to know?”

  “Tell us about Kyle Bornestein. What was he like?”

  “He was a fuckin’ freak,” Montgomery said. “When I moved in I thought, ‘Okay, cool, here’s a dude my own age. Should be more chill than Mrs. Osteoporosis McGlover next door.’ Uhh, wrong.”

  “What made you think he was weird?” Cooper asked.

  “Dude, I saw you go inside his place. What the hell do you think? Give me prune juice with Mrs. M. any day over one second over there in Death Valley. And it wasn’t just that. He was, I don’t know, intense. About everything. Running around with weights on at six in the morning. Working out. Hunting. Politics. Taking potshots at fucking chipmunks. Chipmunks, man. C’mon.”

  “Did you notice anything different about him before he disappeared?”

  Montgomery shrugged. “Uh, maybe he got more intense? Field Start fired him a few months ago.”

  “Field Start?” Cooper asked.

  “Sporting-goods-slash-hardware store. That gave him more time to be more weird, I guess?”

  “He say why they fired him?”

  “According to Kyle, he left them because he had something big in the works. ‘Sitting on a mine,’ he kept saying. Yeah, right. Everyone knows he was fired for stealing shit. Guess his gold mine needed fencing he couldn’t afford to buy.”

  “Did Kyle talk about having any friends or family in the area?”

  “I don’t know. A couple guys he would hunt with used to come around. But I think even they thought he was a nut job. I haven’t seen anyone for a while. Not until the cops started showing up anyway.”

  “Do you have any friends or family in the area?” Park asked.

  “What the fuck? Is that a threat? Is he threatening me?” Montgomery asked Cooper.

  Cooper wasn’t sure what he was doing. “Answer the question, Mr. Montgomery.” He sniffed the air dramatically. He couldn’t smell anything, but he figured Park hadn’t been bullshitting about the pot.

  Montgomery shook his head. “No, I don’t have friends or family in this area. Or any area. But Mrs. M. would notice if I was gone, so don’t get any ideas.”

  “Has anything out of the ordinary occurred in your life recently? Any fights or strange run-ins? Have you felt threatened at all?” Park continued.

  “Besides this charming encounter? No.”

  “Did Kyle ever mention a Robbie Gould?”

  “The missing guy? Nah, I don’t think so.”

  “What about Sam Whittaker?” Cooper said.

  “Never heard of him.”

  “What about this guy? Has he ever been around?” Park pulled the photo he’d shown Cooper at Gould’s out of his pocket and p
ointed to Whittaker. Cooper’s eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t even noticed Park snag the photo. The wolf was slick.

  “Nope. Don’t recognize him.”

  “Okay, thank you, Mr. Montgomery.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Be safe,” Park said, and smiled cheerfully.

  They started to walk back to the car when Cooper turned. “Just one more thing. Did Bornestein ever bring movies over to watch at your house?”

  “What? No. Hell no.”

  “Maybe he asked to borrow your computer then?”

  “No way. I told you we weren’t friends. Besides, he had his own.”

  “His own computer? Are you sure?”

  “Oh yeah. He was on it all the time. Mrs. M. was always complaining he was stealing her Wi-Fi. Slowing her down.” He gestured at the trailer immediately next to Bornestein’s.

  “What happened to the computer?”

  “The cops came and took all that stuff. Duh.” Montgomery frowned. “What did you say BSI was again?”

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Montgomery.”

  “Did you get anything out of that, Columbo?” Park murmured as they got into the car and pulled out of the park.

  Cooper shrugged, still piecing it together, and, as usual, Park didn’t push. They slipped into silence. The rumble and bump of the car on the pitted road the only sound between them.

  Cooper should be grateful for the space, or at least used to it. As good a partner as Jefferson was, he did have the tendency to go AWOL sometimes and leave Cooper to play catch-up. But he and Park had had a rhythm going back there. It had been, well, nice. The silence was not. More than that he realized he was curious to hear Park’s opinion. So maybe the guy was just a politician for the Trust, but he’d still asked some good questions.

  And he had a way with people. Winning over Christie, soothing the lost local from the search party, joking with Jenny. Even while getting Montgomery to talk to them he’d been charming, in a way. Park seemed to be able to read people and slip into whatever role they expected. Being what people expected made them more likely to relax their guard around him. It wasn’t a bad trait in an agent. Or partner.