In the Company of Wolves_Thinning The Herd

by James Michael Larranaga

  Kirsten,

  Spencer is working undercover. This is an “off-record” case. Two agents dead, and others have been killed as well. I plan to wrap this up soon.

  PS. I too have watched wolves kill, and you are right. It’s both exhilarating and sad.

  Quin

  He was, of course, speaking metaphorically about the wolves at Safe Haven, but she wouldn’t understand yet. He could explain all of that when she got back in town.

  He was never really sure how to end his e-mails. Should he use ”Sincerely,” or ”Love,” or maybe ”Psychotically Yours”? He always just wrote his name and left his affections unsaid.

  He sent the e-mail and thought about Lunde again. They’d never met at FBI offices. And Dr. Kirsten Hayden, who was familiar with most of the FBI agents, had never heard of him. If by some weird chance Lunde wasn’t FBI, then who was he?

  The lifespan of a wolf in the wild is only ten to twelve years.

  David approached Monica’s front door with flowers in hand and a bottle of La Crema Chardonnay. She had a small condo tucked into a quiet neighborhood of townhomes and apartments where he’d spent many nights when his wife and kids thought he was patrolling Carver County in his squad car. This was the only time he’d visited her during the day. He had a key and usually let himself in, but he hadn’t heard from her since Monday, so he knocked. He listened for the patter of her footsteps on the wood floor inside.

  Nothing.

  “Monica?”

  He pulled the key from his pocket, inserted it into the door, and entered the condo. The living room and kitchen were immaculate, as usual.

  “Monica?”

  Her Egyptian Mau cat, Frisco, darted from the bedroom onto the couch in front of the TV. David noticed the cat’s dark spotted coat was matted. He also noticed bloodstains on the chair where Frisco perched.

  “What did you get into now?” David said as he walked over to inspect his paw.

  He looked closer as he patted Frisco’s head. Was the cat bleeding? Had Frisco caught his paw in a door? He searched the room and noticed the trail of blood leading back to the bedroom.

  David followed the blood down the hall past the bathroom to Monica’s bedroom. He heard the bedroom TV on with the sound down low. As he entered he noticed Monica on the bed in her leopard-print bathrobe.

  Frisco’s red paw prints covered the white bedspread and pillows.

  David felt dizzy and weak in the knees as he approached her bed.

  “Monica, honey, wake up.”

  He leaned over the bed. Monica was facing the other direction, the back of her head busted open with blood and brain tissue on the pillows and white headboard.

  David staggered backward, turning away with his hands covering his face. “No! My God, no!”

  Why had she done this? Had he really pushed this far?

  He lowered his hands and looked again. Frisco jumped onto the bed and began licking the blood off the pillow.

  “Get off her,” David said. He snatched Frisco from the pillow and surveyed the scene more closely.

  He noticed her gun on her chest near her right hand. She must’ve put it in her mouth before pulling the trigger. But there was no note, no letter explaining why she’d killed herself.

  David couldn’t bear to accept this. Monica had been upset about killing Munroe Pilson. But was she suicidal?

  Where was her phone? He’d left her voice mails and text messages that could be incriminating. David set Frisco out in the hall and went back into the bedroom to search for her phone.

  She always kept it near the bed on her nightstand, but it wasn’t there. He dropped to his knees, lifted the comforter, and searched under the bed. No phone.

  He stood up and grabbed his phone. He called hers and listened to his phone while he listened for the ringing of hers somewhere in the condo. In his phone he heard Monica’s voicemail and hung up.

  David was in panic mode, but he knew he had to snap out of it and call 911. His presence here wasn’t suspicious because he was checking up on his partner. She was distraught after the shooting, and he was concerned about her. His concern was obviously justified, but he’d have to get rid of the flowers and wine.

  He looked back at her one more time, and all of his fear and confusion began to fade into anger. Something wasn’t right about the gun on her chest.

  David’s phone vibrated in his hand. He felt it vibrate again. “Hello?”

  “David, it’s Ben.”

  “You son of a bitch!” David shouted.

  “Calm down. Where are you?”

  “I’m in her bedroom where you murdered her,” he said with tears streaming down his cheeks.

  “David, she shot herself,” Ben said.

  “The only way you’d know that is if you pulled the trigger.”

  “Harold stopped by to frighten her,” Ben said. “He discovered her body. He brought her phone back to the office, and I noticed you called it a minute ago.”

  None of this made sense to David. He breathed deeply and tried to regain his composure.

  “You’re a liar.” David couldn’t trust Ben anymore.

  “She was depressed, and she took her own life,” Ben said. “You know how upset she was. You said so yourself.”

  “I can’t do this anymore, Ben!”

  “You’re in too deep to walk away. Now that you’ve discovered her body, you’ll have to call the authorities,” Ben said. “It’s natural for you to be upset. She was your partner. Can you hang up and make the call?”

  David took another deep breath to calm his nerves. Ben was right, he was in too deep to walk away. “I’ll call it in.”

  “And later tonight stop by the office so we can talk,” Ben said.

  David had no interest in talking with Ben except to confront him face to face. That was what he’d do: he’d confront Ben and make him admit to this murder. “I’ll stop by later.”

  He hung up on Ben and studied the scene again. Monica’s left arm was at her side, the right arm on her chest. She’d shot herself using her right hand? Why would she do that if she was left-handed?

  Quin had sorted through the day’s mail, updating the database with the cards that Safe Haven clients had returned. Forty-five replies; nobody had died recently. He printed labels for this week’s mailing and stuck them to the newest yellow cards. He then added a new technique to client research by cross-referencing as many clients as he could find on LinkedIn and Facebook. Maybe Harold would be impressed that social media could serve a useful purpose after all.

  Quin was becoming obsessed with reading people’s obituaries. He noticed that most died of natural causes, but when he researched Safe Haven clients that Big Ben had mentioned in his presentation to Rebecca, a high percentage of them were accidental deaths not caused by disease. This confirmed Quin and Lunde’s theory that the wolves at Safe Haven were killing their clients, but the number of deaths was surprising to Quin.

  Around him the men were busy talking to clients on the phone and filling out paperwork. He wondered if he could make a copy of this client list. He could run an extra set of labels, hide them in his coat, and smuggle them out. Then all he’d have to do would be to make a copy of their prospect list and find out where Big Ben kept their list of investors.

  Richard smoothed his gray-haired temples and pulled his chair closer. “I heard you and Ms. Anonymous hit it off quite well in the presentation.”

  “Who told you that?” he asked, as if he didn’t know. There had been only two others in the meeting.

  “How come you and Christopher were in that presentation? Why weren’t we invited?” Richard asked, as if he’d been cheated out of another great opportunity.

  Quin continued surfing Facebook. “I don’t know why. Go ask Ben.”

  Richard mumbled something under his breath, crossing his arms. “What do you think, Bob?”

  Bob Mullen slowed his typing. “About what?”

  “About Quin’s chances with Ms. Anonymous?” R
ichard said.

  “Not bad, I’d say,” Bob said with a funky grin that made his wrinkled brow rise into his artificially colored hair. “You could sleep with Ms. Anonymous, Quin, and when she asks why you didn’t call her the next day, you could say you didn’t know her name.”

  Both of the old dogs got a good laugh out of that one, not realizing that Quin did know Rebecca’s name.

  James sat up in his chair, looking to Bob and Richard. “Almost time,” he said. The laugh, the chuckle that usually accompanied his speech, was noticeably absent.

  There was a lull in the room’s activity. Quin could see that Stray Dog had noticed it too. Big Ben was across the room with Harold, putting his coat on. The men watched the alpha; a signal was taking place. A nonverbal announcement was at hand.

  The wolves are warning one another.

  Quin typed on his keyboard as the men went to their armoires, grabbed their coats, and walked toward the door. Stray Dog swung around in his chair with surprise. “Where’s everyone headed?”

  “Off-site meeting,” Big Ben said with a terse, polite smile.

  Stray Dog bolted from his chair to get his coat, but his boss stopped him. “Stay here with Quin. Make sure he gets this mailing out on time.”

  The omega plopped himself back into the chair. He must be accustomed to this treatment by now: once an outsider, always an outsider. Quin knew the feeling; some Indians felt he looked and acted too white, so he wasn’t always accepted on the reservation either.

  The men left the library single file, and before Big Ben closed the door, he stuck his head back inside. “After you two finish the mailing, go home.”

  When the door closed, the room echoed, the sound carrying high into the domed skylight above. Stray Dog licked his wounds, clicking away on his keyboard, updating his files in the database. He knew the computer network as well as Big Ben and moved through it easily, and he sometimes helped the older wolves when they had trouble.

  Quin debated whether he could get Stray Dog’s help in downloading the lists. How loyal was this outsider? “Where are they headed?”

  Stray Dog continued typing. “Who the hell knows?”

  “What happens at an off-site meeting?”

  “Beats me. A lot of crap happens around here that doesn’t involve me; that much I’m sure of,” he said.

  Quin wondered why they had accepted young James into their inner circle but not Stray Dog. They had both started working at Safe Haven around the same time. Stray Dog actually had more experience, having worked for a competitor. But maybe that was the problem. Maybe Big Ben never quite trusted him.

  “What do you think of Ben?” Quin asked, testing his loyalty.

  “Asshole,” Stray Dog said. “Every single one of them is an asshole.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “They’re no better than the jerks over at Benson & White,” Stray Dog said. “I left BW because I got bad vibes. Weird stuff was going on behind the scenes, and when I get here, I discover things aren’t much better.”

  He continued peeling labels. “Bad vibes?”

  “Hard to describe,” Stray Dog said, sitting back in his chair. He wasn’t helping Quin with the mailing as his boss had asked him to. “Instant off-site meetings, private e-mails and memos routed around the office, secret databases, murder, that sort of thing.”

  Quin stopped peeling labels and stared at the omega, waiting for laughter. “Murder?”

  Stray Dog flashed a superior grin. “That’s right, my friend.”

  OK, out with the details. Quin was thinking of Cassy and Martin, of Pilson. Did Stray Dog know about these crimes? “Who was murdered?”

  “Some old dude, one of my clients back at Benson & White,” he said. “One month after we bought the policy, he drowned in his swimming pool.”

  “And you have proof that somebody over at Benson & White did it?” Quin asked.

  “Proof? No. But I have my suspicions. Those people over there are wicked. They lie and steal to get business,” he said. “They were so desperate, sometimes they’d have their own employees go work for a janitorial company that cleaned one of their competitors’ offices. At night, they would copy the competitor’s files and get a better understanding of who they were chasing, or how high they were making offers to prospects.”

  Quin was amazed at the audacity. “That’s illegal.”

  “Are you kidding? That’s nothing. They sometimes paid secretaries and support staff at competitors’ offices to scout around for us. It was a scam where we’d tell the secretary that we were with the FBI, doing an investigation, and we needed his or her help to copy files. Of course they’d help out in an instant. I wouldn’t trust a soul over at BW.”

  Quin sat back in his chair, feeling foolish and suckered. He’d never met Lunde until a few weeks ago. The man wanted copies of Safe Haven’s files. He said at lunch that he knew people over at Benson & White who could make Rebecca Baron an offer. Lunde had duped Quin.

  Damn it! Take a deep breath. Quin reached in the drawer of his desk for his pills. “What about Cassy and Martin? Do you think they were murdered?”

  Stray Dog thought about it, shaking his head. “It’s possible. Ben despised both of them.”

  “What about Pilson?” Quin asked, watching Stray Dog’s expression.

  “I don’t know. You were there when he was shot,” Stray Dog said. “I spend most of my time away from the office. I don’t see much of what happens around here. What are you driving at?”

  Quin knew better than to tell Stray Dog what was going on, but he couldn’t trust Lunde anymore. Maybe he could trust the omega. He lowered his voice. “I’m a bounty hunter.”

  Stray Dog’s face wrinkled, his head cocked, like a dog that had caught an unfamiliar scent. “A what?”

  “I was hired to come in here and find out what happened to Cassy and Martin,” he said, watching the surprise creep into Stray Dog’s face. “I’ve seen the bodies!”

  “You’ve seen the bodies of Cassy and Martin?” Stray Dog asked as his typing came to an abrupt stop.

  “Yes, they were in one of the icehouses on the lake,” Quin said.

  “Where on the lake?”

  “Straight out back. But they’ve moved the icehouse.”

  Stray Dog gave Quin a suspicious stare. “You’re not messing with me, are you?”

  “No, you mentioned murder first, and I’m telling you that I have found bodies.”

  “Who hired you to come in here?” Stray Dog asked.

  This was the embarrassing part. “I thought it was the FBI, but–“

  “Benson & White!” Stray Dog said, pulling on his dark hair. “See? I told you! Those people are devious. They scammed you too.”

  Quin tried to contain his frustration. He should’ve strangled Lunde out on the lake when he had the chance. “I suppose Cassy and Martin actually worked for Benson & White.”

  Stray Dog stood up and walked to the window, looking out onto the lake. “Yeah, it makes sense. They probably had Cassy and Martin working the inside. When they disappeared, they hired you, the mercenary, to go barge in.”

  “I should go over there and arrest them myself,” Quin said, thinking of retribution.

  “Don’t beat yourself up over this, Quin. These guys are pros. They’ve been playing this game a long time,” Stray Dog said, still peering out the window.

  Quin began thinking again about heading home. He could make a phone call to a real FBI agent, and the whole thing would be over.

  Stray Dog looked across the room at him. “Quin, how would you like to make a lot of money?”

  Scrawny Stray Dog was planning something. In his small head was a big idea.

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “What if you and I work together? We make Rebecca a settlement offer?” Stray Dog suggested. “I’m a licensed broker. We could split the commission between the two of us.”

  What? The omega stealing a bone from the alpha? “You want to take th
is prospect right out from underneath Ben’s nose?” Quin asked.

  “If Ben and these other jerks are murderers, then we’re doing her a favor,” he said. “Besides, I’d make a bigger commission doing the deal myself and splitting it with you than if I work with Ben.”

  Quin was intrigued. Not fully convinced the omega could pull it off, but intrigued. “How would you do this?”

  “I’ve been planning to leave this place to go into business for myself anyway. Now seems like the perfect time,” Stray Dog said.

  Quin heard Ben’s Suburban idling in the driveway. He walked to the front window and noticed the men standing outside the truck attaching a trailer. “An off-site meeting that requires them to pull a trailer? They’re moving the bodies again.”

  “Can you follow them?” Stray Dog asked.

  “Sure, I can track them down,” Quin said. “Do us a favor and download their client and prospect files.”

  “No problem. To start my own business, I would’ve done that anyway,” Stray Dog said as he sauntered back to his desk with new confidence.

  Quin grabbed his coat and buttoned it, watching Stray Dog clicking away at his keyboard. He’d found an ally on the inside, somebody he could trust instead of Lunde. He wasn’t sure about Stray Dog’s moneymaking scheme, but he was glad to have a partner on the inside, and for that he felt lucky.

  Quin waited for the men to climb into their Chevy Suburban with the trailer hitched to the back before he ran to his pickup truck. Big Ben and his pack of wolves drove past the carriage house, down the driveway, off the estate, and onto the road. Quin followed slowly, allowing enough distance so they wouldn’t notice him.

  The Suburban turned left and headed toward the public access to the lake. Many of the local fishermen used the access to load and unload their icehouses. Quin waited in his truck as the Suburban rolled onto the ice, where it slowed near a small village of icehouses.

  Three of the men got out. One lowered the gate of the trailer, and then all three began pushing one of the ice-houses across the snow. They slid the wooden shack up onto the trailer.