Werewolf Murders

by William L. DeAndrea

  Benedetti just looked wise. “I will hold the bag of apples. Just go get the bandages, please.”

  And Ron was off. He was so charged by whatever it was he’d seen that linked bandages and apples, that he was gone less than half a minute. They all piled into the baron’s largest limo, with the overflow being carried in the police car, and headed for the observatory.

  Janet contrived to sit next to her husband (just as, she was not too preoccupied to notice, Karin and Paul had managed to sit together), but for all the good it did her, she might have been sitting next to a bolster.

  It was, in fact, worse than that, because a bolster would at least have kept his mouth shut. About every thirty seconds, Ron would make a fist and whisper, “Of course!” or, “We should have seen that!” or, “I ought to get somebody to kick me in the ass!”

  He wouldn’t, Janet thought, have to look outside the family for a volunteer.

  When she asked him for a little hint about what this was all about, he said, “Shh, honey, I’m trying to catch up with the old man, and I don’t have much time.”

  So now, he apparently had caught up with the Professor, and they were exchanging intelligent looks, while Janet sat there and stewed. What made it worse was that she wasn’t even sure what she was angry about.

  She supposed she resented the whole thing’s being so goddam stereotypical. Less than an hour ago, the Professor had been telling her she’d put her finger on a vital aspect of the case. Swell. She not only didn’t know what was so vital about it, she wasn’t even sure which finger.

  Ron, meantime, had spent this whole trip making connections, watching clues link up like replicating DNA in his mind, until he had the whole organism of the crime complete.

  She’d been fighting clichés like “women-are-intuitive-men-are-logical” all her life, and it bothered her that a jerk who believed that could point at her and Ron for evidence.

  Then, as she often did, she kidded herself out of it. If that flash of Ron’s, even guided by the Professor the way it had been, wasn’t intuitive, she didn’t know what intuition was. The rest was practice and training.

  Which the Professor refused to give her, not because she was a woman, but because she was “too old.” Another prejudice she had to fight.

  She would, she decided, show them. If the training couldn’t be systematic, she’d watch Ron and the Professor, and steal it where she could. In the meantime, she’d continue to contribute what she could as part of the team. But someday, she’d show them. Maybe not the next case, or the one after that, but sometime soon, Janet Higgins would get to the solution of a case the same time as Ron. Maybe even the same time as Benedetti. If fate and love had led her to this kind of life, then by God, she would make it her business to do it right.

  The cable car bumped to a halt. The policemen opened the door. Diderot stayed inside; Marx stationed himself outside the door, giving the passengers a helping hand and a sour look as they stepped down.

  26

  RON SAT IN THE front row in case the Professor needed him. They were in the observatory’s small auditorium/press briefing room, which, according to Karin Tebner, had seen a lot of use in the early, happy days of OSI, right after Hans Goetz had spotted the supernova.

  Ron was somewhat surprised to discover, when Karin had let them in with her key, that a bunch of astronomers were in fact on duty tonight. He realized now that he shouldn’t have been. Murders were a lot more common than supernovae. Generations of astronomers had lived and died without seeing any of the latter. These guys weren’t going to miss the chance.

  And there was something comforting, Ron supposed, about the idea of watching, as a new phenomenon, a catastrophe that occurred a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. It was sure a lot more comforting than being stuck in the middle of a catastrophe here, now.

  A lot of noncomforting thoughts were chasing each other through Ron’s head. He had, he believed, a fairly good idea of what the killer had been up to, and why, thanks to the Professor’s hint. He even knew what the apples were for.

  Unfortunately, Benedetti had neglected to drop any hints about what he was up to. For instance, Ron didn’t even know what the hell they were up at the observatory for.

  He sighed. The only thing to do was try to hang onto the old man’s coattails and keep running until you got there. Trust in the Professor and in luck.

  Luck. For example, Ron would bet francs to a stale brioche that Benedetti had had no idea there was an auditorium or any other room large enough to hold his “guests” when he planned to come up here. He not only found one, he found one with a lectern, so he could really give it to the class right.

  The metaphor fit. Romanescu, Frau Goetz, the baron, all of them, were settling into seats on the raised tiers of the room like students who’d cut too many classes about to face a final exam.

  Ron supposed it was natural for them to be nervous, but the only ones who were likely to be called on to recite were Ron himself, and the killer.

  The Professor had a few last words with Diderot, then mounted the small stage and stood at the lectern.

  “For over a month,” the old man began, “this town has been terrorized by a killer who has, by mutual consent, come to be known as ‘the Werewolf.’

  “This Werewolf has taken three lives. He has, for all practical purposes, destroyed the Olympique Scientifique Internationale, despite the laudable devotion shown by the astronomers working here tonight. He has reduced this place, both its citizens and its visitors, to a state of terror, be it supernatural or otherwise.”

  “Don’t forget the attack on Dr. Romanescu,” Karin Tebner said.

  Benedetti smiled. “I promise you, I shall not forget it.”

  He nodded at the Romanian, who nodded back.

  “I must confess to a shameful slowness. If I had seen the key clue when it was first presented to me, I could have brought the killer to heel in a matter of hours. In that case, Dr. Jacky Spaak would still be alive.”

  The old man gave a sad little shrug. “I grieve. But we are all human, eh? If we could do what we wished at the earliest possible opportunity, life would be a simple thing.

  “But it is best to begin at the beginning. And a murder investigation almost always begins with the motive. But in this case, we must seek a something beyond a motive for murder.”

  “This should be educational,” Marx snarled.

  Benedetti sighed. “I weary of you, Monsieur Marx. Don’t you think it is time to drop your impersonation?”

  Marx drew back as though he’d been struck. Diderot pulled out a truncheon from his pocket. Ron jumped to his feet. He headed in the Alsatian’s general direction, but he kept his face on the Professor.

  “Him?” he demanded. “He’s the killer?”

  “No, no. Sit down, amico. Marx has his secrets, but he is not the killer. Put your club away, Monsieur Diderot. You will not have to suffer the indignity of having to arrest a brother police officer for these killings. For two reasons. First, he is not the killer. Second, because he is not a police officer.”

  Diderot was shocked. “But his papers—I checked with the Sûreté—”

  “And the Sûreté told you, with great reluctance, and no little anger, what they had been ordered to tell you. That Marx had been sent to replace the murdered Captain de Blois.”

  Benedetti looked down at Marx. “I can see you planning some internal security probe, even now, Monsieur Marx. It is not necessary. The head of your organization is a friend of mine. When I presented my suspicions to him over the telephone earlier, he confirmed them.”

  The baron was confused. “Organization? What organization?”

  “DST,” Marx said. “Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire. It was thought best, after the second murder, that we have a man on the scene, you see.”

  Ron looked at him, and saw a completely different man. The hostility was gone. In its place was a man with the air of someone who’s just shot a bad round of golf, and is b
eing a good sport about being stuck with the drinks.

  “Who thought it best?” the baron demanded. His face was growing redder by the second. “When I tried to begin OSI, the government cautioned me against spies, yes! And I listened to them, used their safeguards to ensure only bona fide scientists came to OSI. And what do I find now? I, Pierre, Baron du Benac, am being spied upon by France! I should have at least been told! After all that has befallen, this is the worst—to be suspected by my country of harboring its enemies!”

  “You shouldn’t take it personally, baron,” Marx said. He seemed genuinely concerned. “It’s just the way things are done, these days.”

  “That,” Benedetti said, “is all too true. It was done the way things are so often done, these days. Sloppily. You depended on the excellence of your papers to see you through, but it was obvious to see you were no policeman. Especially not one with such a high rank in an organization the like of the Sûreté. There was a time when the DST recruited policemen to its ranks; now like many other intelligence organizations, it contents itself with bright young things from college campuses. You might have studied police procedure, you know.”

  Marx shrugged. “No time.”

  “Cigarettes at the crime scene!” Diderot said. His tone was the tone of a man vindicated.

  “Concentrating on one suspect virtually to the exclusion of everything else,” Ron said. “I’d wondered about that. What was it, raging hormones, or did you think Dr. Tebner was actually up to something?”

  Marx looked at the Professor. “I wonder,” he said, “if you told my superior just how much of our dirty laundry you intended to wash in public.”

  He turned to Ron. “To answer your question, Karin is a charming woman, but I have a wife and family, and my hormones, as you so charmingly put it, are well taken care of. Dr. Tebner was singled out for my preliminary attention because she was involved in the case, and because as a graduate student in 1984, she circulated a petition detrimental to the interests of the Republic of France.”

  “I did what?” Karin said.

  Marx spread his hands as if in apology. “That was my information.”

  “You mean when I protested the sinking of an unarmed Greenpeace boat by the French Navy? Sinking unarmed environmentalists is in the interests of the Republic of France?”

  Levesque muttered, “It is not,” and took a grip on Karin’s hand. Ron saw it and smiled.

  Benedetti cleared his throat. He had a way of commanding attention.

  “You might have carried on your imposture in spite of all this, if you hadn’t been so damnably hostile. No policeman would last a month with an attitude such as you have been affecting. A tough man is not a boor. You must have formulated your ideas of criminal investigation from the same novels as poor Dr. Spaak did.”

  Marx half smiled, and shrugged again. Ron decided he liked the man better as a snarling pain in the ass than he did as a graceful and unconcerned loser. At least the hostile Marx had seemed to care about something.

  “It is always good,” Benedetti said, “to clear away the distractions. I regret exposing you to so many, but I cannot do what I must do under your consistent sniping, and you proved impervious to hints. Have you anything further to contribute to the matter at hand?”

  Marx was bland. “Not at all. I simply repeat what I have already said—this should be educational.”

  “I hope it will prove so for all of us.”

  Benedetti looked around the room to make sure he had everybody’s attention. It was the kind of gesture Ron always thought the old man could do without. He’d dropped one little bombshell on Marx, just to show he meant business. He knew they weren’t going to let their attention wander, and they knew he knew it, so all this theatricality was wasted. It was hard to argue with the results, but Ron had a natural tendency to want to simplify things. He also had a tendency to start to lose interest once the killer was identified. It would be a big mistake to let that happen now. This baby was dangerous, and was likely to go on being dangerous, despite appearances.

  “As I was saying,” the Professor went on, “we come to the question of motive. Perhaps I should elaborate. The other two components of the solution to a crime are largely useless to us here. Opportunity excludes virtually no one. This was a gathering of honor, not a summer camp. No one’s movements were monitored, and no one was stopped entering or leaving the town. The fact that Monsieur Marx, for example, was not even in the town of Mont-St.-Denis when the first two murders occurred means nothing. He could have come and gone with no one the wiser. Alibis, and there are several in this case, are worth slightly more, but not much. While they may clear this person or that one (and we must remember that alibis can be faked and frequently are) this person’s or that person’s alibi does nothing to advance us toward the truth.

  “Means is of even less help than opportunity, for the means were at hand. The murderer struck by crushing or tearing throats, and for a killer like that, every glass bottle is a potential murder weapon. The world is full of jagged objects.

  “And so at last, we are back where I began. Looking for a motive. Searching for a motive beyond the simple motive for murder.”

  “Why do you say that?” Frau Goetz asked. “What can be beyond murder?”

  “There are many things, madame,” he said sadly. “And neither I as an Italian nor you as a German can ever decently forget what they are. Those things are conquest, and genocide, and the destruction of freedom, and the stifling of the human spirit. In essence, Frau Goetz, the notion, whether held by an individual or spread throughout society, that somehow it is permissible to dispose of the lives of others to suit one’s own ends.

  “Our countries once thought that way. Other countries have until recently. Some do today. I doubt the killer we seek has ever thought in any other manner.

  “But that is not what I meant by seeking a motive beyond murder, either.”

  By now Ron Gentry would have interrupted any other speaker in the world, saying, “Well, what the hell do you mean?”

  It wasn’t as if Benedetti wasn’t giving the rest of the crowd a chance to do it, either. The old man waited a good five seconds before he went on.

  “What I mean is, Why has the killer chosen to be a Werewolf?”

  The members of the audience showed puzzled looks to each other. Most had never thought of things that way. Ron knew one was faking.

  “If one maintains,” the Professor said, “as I have from the beginning, that these are not the random crimes of a madman, then one must answer that question above all others. The very conditions that render the questions of opportunity and means no help tell us that there was a large number of alternative methods to have committed each crime. A gun, a knife, a bludgeon at random intervals, and these murders might never even have been connected.

  “So why the viciousness of the attacks? Why strike during the full moon, or near it? Dr. Higgins,” he said, and Janet jumped.

  “Yes, Professor.”

  “You have made a survey of the literature of the mental disease known as lycanthropism?”

  “Briefly, yes.”

  “These people believe they turn into wolves?”

  “Yes, Professor. Some of them drop to all fours and kill and eat animals.”

  “Eat them. Va bène. Do they restrict their activities to the time of the full moon?”

  “No, Professor. Virtually never.”

  “Then whatever triggers these people in their werewolflike behavior, it is not the moon?”

  “That’s correct.” Janet was getting better at this.

  “I believe, then, we may assume it is not the moon that is triggering the attacks. And yet—”

  Again the long pause. This time, somebody bit. Diderot said, “And yet what, Professor?”

  “And yet, mystical as it may sound, part of the solution of this case does lie in the heavens.”

  27

  “ALL WE NEED DO, to start, is to find the crater Clavius on the surfa
ce of the moon,” Benedetti said. He gestured toward the telescope.

  Karin Tebner began to step forward. It would be a relief to be able to do something. Right now, she didn’t know whether to slap Samuel Marx’s face (although Professor Benedetti had already done a fairly good symbolic job of that), feel like an idiot for letting the man use her—even to the (thank God) limited extent he had—or just enjoy the feeling she got from being close to Paul Levesque. She ought to slap his face, for waiting so long to talk to her. She’d been attracted to him since the opening ceremonies, too.

  So many conflicting emotions made it almost impossible to sit or stand still, and finding Clavius was something she could do since she was ten years old.

  But Benedetti held up a hand to stop her. “Thank you, Dr. Tebner,” he said, “but I believe Dr. Romanescu should do the honors.” He gave a little grin. “Seniority, you know.”

  Poor Dr. Romanescu stood against the wall with a bewildered look on his face.

  Benedetti had moved everyone from the auditorium to the observatory proper to look for the killer in the heavens, whatever that meant. Karin was delighted to note that the Professor did not intend to dispossess her colleagues from the main reflector. The nova was a lot harder to find than Clavius.

  Fortunately, Benedetti was content to lead everyone into what Karin liked to think of as the hobby room. This was an annex of the observatory in which the baron had thoughtfully provided six extremely good backyard-type serious-amateur telescopes for visiting dignitaries and journalists to look through without disturbing the real work.

  “Dr. Romanescu?” Benedetti said “Please?”

  “No, no,” the Romanian said. “I yield gladly to Dr. Tebner.”

  “I insist,” Benedetti told him. “Please. Any telescope you choose.”

  Romanescu was shaking as he walked forward. The poor man was so befuddled, he started trying to pull a focus before he had even moved the shaft, then he tried to move it without unlocking the pivot, and almost knocked the whole three-thousand-dollar toy over.