by A. Star
“You keep saying animals. Plural.”
“Yeah. The ME and Rosen suggested a pack of wild dogs did it.”
“You don’t sound as though that satisfies you,” I said, watching him closely.
“The problem is size,” Layden responded. “Rosen estimated the size of the animals that attacked Hayes would have run from 120 pounds for the smallest to over 200 pounds for the largest. A pack of Rottweilers, Great Danes and Saint Bernards? I find that hard to swallow, no pun intended.”
“I don’t see any tracks,” I said. “Did you find any?”
“This ground doesn’t hold tracks. We did find a few in the mud over by the windmill. Rosen said they were consistent with a large dog. Or maybe a timber wolf.”
He watched me as he said this. When I didn’t react, a tight smile appeared on his face. “You don’t seem surprised.”
I shook my head. “If you told me you’d found three-toed alien footprints it wouldn’t have surprised me. Nothing about this makes any sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he said slowly, drawing out the words. “But the idea of aliens makes more sense to me than wild dogs.”
My head whipped around and I stared at him, waiting for him to laugh. He didn’t.
“I’m not sure what you’re driving at,” I said.
“I’m saying that sometimes you can only find an explanation if you look outside a normal view of the world. This horse isn’t the only animal that’s been killed and eaten. There have been cattle, deer, domestic dogs and sheep that fit the same pattern. The kills cover most of the county. That’s an area larger than the state of Rhode Island, Dr. Cortez.”
I looked around. The Sangre de Christo Mountains loomed in the distance, over twenty miles away. “If we were closer to the mountains, I might think about bears or cougars,” I said.
“Yeah, I would, too. But this wasn’t a bear, and cougars don’t come down into the desert. They wouldn’t have a need to, either. Plenty of deer and elk up there.” He pointed toward the mountains with his chin. “Besides, the teeth marks say dog, not cat. In any case, the evidence is there were multiple teeth prints. Both bears and cougars are solo hunters.”
“A mama bear with cubs?” I suggested.
He gave me a look. It was a major reach and I hadn’t really thought he would buy it.
“Okay, so what’s your theory?” I asked him. “Thinking out of the box, of course.”
“Most of the kills have happened around a full moon,” he said. “If I was a drinking man, I might entertain a theory about Werewolves. But, of course those don’t exist.”
He wasn’t smiling, and when I looked in his eyes I could tell he was dead serious.
“You’ve been reading too many books from the grocery store checkout line, Sheriff,” I laughed. “You need to spend a little more time in the serious literature section of the library.”
“Did anyone ever tell you that you move like a cat?” he asked. “Every time I look at you it seems as though I see two different beings in one body.”
“You’re a strange one, Sheriff. Do you really get laid using that kind of weird line?”
“Call me Ted. I don’t see that sort of thing when I look at most people. Carlos Lopez and the people he hangs around with look strange also. But you’re different.”
I shrugged and turned away. “Gringos always think Mexicans are strange. We think you’re strange.” Walking back to my truck, I said, “Thanks for showing me this, and explaining what your ME found. I’ve heard of Rosen. I’ll give him a call.”
As I started the pickup, he walked up and stood by the window. “Isabella, be careful. I have a feeling you know what’s going on, but Lopez has reasons to sweep all of this under a rug. I have reasons to bring a killer out into the open. Don’t get caught in the middle. I will figure this thing out.”
“Sheriff Ted,” I said with a smile, “I hope you do. Remember that you promised to share what you find with me.”
~~~
I spent the afternoon finding and talking with two ranchers who were members of Lopez’s pack.
“They’re just a bunch of young, wild kids,” Jorge Morales told me. He had lost four cattle over the past six months. “We know who they are. Most of them are from the Santa Fe pack, but at least one of them is from the Clovis pack and two are from Las Cruces. A fifteen-year-old girl disappeared in Las Cruces about three weeks ago, and we think she’s with them, too.”
“If you know who they are, why is it so difficult to track them down?” I asked.
Jorge lit a cigarette. “I think they’re living in Albuquerque,” he said. “We’ve searched all through Santa Fe and the surrounding area. If they were around here, someone would have smelled them. I think they’re just driving up here to hunt.”
I reported back to Carlos late in the afternoon. The full moon was four days away, and although Weres can shift any time, it’s easiest then. It’s also when Were females go into estrus. Traditionally, that’s when the packs go hunting.
“Carlos, did it occur to you that someone in your pack might be tipping off the rogues?” I asked him. “If they’re hunting on the full moon, and your pack is also, it seems a bit strange that you’ve never run into them.”
He shook his head. “Not strange at all. We hunt in the mountains. The Santa Fe pack is too large to hunt near any kind of civilization. We usually split up into four main groups, and each of those split again. We do our hunting in the high mountains, bringing down deer and elk. These kids are hunting domestic livestock.” He sneered at this last part, showing his displeasure at the rogues taking easy game.
We talked for another hour, poring over maps and trying to figure a pattern to predict where the rogue pack might hunt this month. Lopez indicated he wasn’t in a huge hurry, but I was. It was the end of summer and I was due back at the university in three weeks. This was the last full moon before that.
When I left the El Lobo, I discovered Sheriff Layden parked next to my truck.
“Are you stalking me?” I asked him with a grin.
“Hop in, I’ll take you to dinner,” he responded.
“Why, Sheriff, are you asking me out on a date?”
“Yeah. Come on.”
I had been trying to give him a hard time, tease him to keep him off balance. His easy answer threw me. I stood staring at him like a fool with my mouth open. The smart-ass comment I’d been ready to deliver slipped away through the cracks in my composure.
“I’m not really dressed to go out,” I mumbled.
“This place isn’t fancy, but I think you’ll like it,” he countered.
Without a good excuse, I walked around his truck and climbed in. He drove us to a strip mall a couple of miles from the downtown tourist area. In spite of myself, I smiled when I saw the name of the restaurant, and the smile grew larger when we walked inside. It was an Old Mexican seafood place. In addition to snapper Veracruz and camarones a la plancha, it had Mexican beer, soda pop, and juices. I hadn’t been back to Mexico in almost a decade, and this place was like coming home.
The second pleasant surprise was that Ted wanted to talk about everything except work. He didn’t bring up Werewolves or murders, and neither did I.
“I got really excited when I ran your license plates,” he told me, blushing. “I’ve read three of your books.”
“My books? Don’t you have a life, Sheriff? Which books?” I don’t write popular literature. I’ve published six books and almost a hundred articles, but they’re all on scientific subjects.
“The first one I read, and my favorite, is Legends of the Jaguar. It was assigned in a class I took in college. I found it fascinating.”
“You really know how to flatter a woman,” I said. “First you tell me you think I’m some kind of alien, now you bring up my age. Sheriff, you really need to find some better lines.” The book he mentioned had been published thirty years before. It grew out of one of my dissertations.
Of course, he knew how old my driver
’s license said I was, but I looked 10-15 years younger than 53. I gauged him to be around 40. Thinking about age made me sad. I enjoyed the life I’d built, but in a few more years I’d have to think about moving on and changing my identity again. People start to notice when you don’t age. Maybe Argentina next time. I hadn’t lived there in a couple of centuries.
“I was an older student,” he said, shaking me back to the present. “I spent two tours in the Marines, then eight years working as a cop and going to school at night to get my degree. I only read the book for the first time about eight years ago.” He gave me a dazzling smile.
“Are you telling me that these weird notions you have about aliens and shape shifters are my fault?” Of course the book covered the legends of jaguar shifters along with every other myth about the powerful cats that I could find between the U.S. and Argentina. “It’s a book about myths, Ted. Even some of the Indian tribes I talked with don’t believe the legends they told me are real.”
Thankfully, we wandered off into other subjects. I enjoyed dinner and the conversation. To be honest, it gave me a warm feeling that he’d read my book. That he wanted to discuss it put me in orbit. Academics labor mostly in solitary anonymity.
“Thank you for dinner. I really enjoyed myself,” I said as I got ready to climb into his truck. Suddenly he was standing in front of me.
“I’d like to see you again, Isabella,” he said. He was standing a bit too close, and the gleam in his eyes was a bit strange. Before I could say anything, he reached for me, pulled me close, and kissed me.
I was taken so much by surprise that I didn’t do anything at first except kiss him back. For some reason, it felt as natural as breathing. Then my brain re-engaged and I pushed him away. I stumbled back a couple of steps.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I sputtered.
“Kissing you,” he answered, his head cocked to the side and a small smile playing about his lips.
“Well, yeah,” I said, trying to catch my balance, “but why?”
“Because I like you. I feel drawn to you.”
Oh, shit! Carlos Lopez was right. Ted Layden was a sensitive, and with the full moon approaching, he was feeling the vibes or pheromones, or whatever it was that my randy cat was broadcasting. And if he had been anyone except the cop who was working the other side of my case, I would've been more than happy to let him catch me.
“You barely know me,” I said.
“I’m trying to remedy that,” he said, stepping forward and pulling me into an embrace. His kiss was sweet and sent my mind spinning. He smelled of man, fit and strong, and I wanted to crawl inside him. My arms curled around his neck and I kissed him back. My legs began to give way, and I was able to maintain my feet only by holding him tighter.
His hands were all over me, stroking and squeezing. I felt a fire begin to build inside. And then my cat began to push me aside. She wanted him, wanted what he had to offer. It wasn’t attraction, it was lust.
Gasping, I pulled away from him, and when he started toward me again, my fists met his chest and held him back.
“No,” I panted. “Not like this. I’m not a kid, and no matter how good looking you are, I’m not going to lie down and spread my legs for you.” I backed away. “Layden, you’re scaring me. If you don’t back off, I’m going to deck you.” He didn’t scare me. I scared me. My cat wanted him so bad, but I hadn’t decided if I did.
Whether it was the look in my eyes or the snarl in my voice, it seemed to get through to him. He shook himself like a cat after a swim. “Isabella. Dr. Cortez. I’m sorry. Please. I’m very attracted to you, but I didn’t mean to come on so strong.”
His body language changed, and the lust in his eyes seemed to clear. He took a couple of steps back, then walked wide around me, heading for his truck.
“I’ll take you back to your pickup. I’ll be good. I promise.”
The ride back to El Lobo was silent and uncomfortable. When I got out, I stopped and looked back at him. “I enjoyed the evening, Sheriff. I would enjoy seeing you again, assuming you can keep your hands to yourself.”
“My deepest apologies, Isabella. I don’t know what came over me. It won’t happen again.”
I nodded, a part of me satisfied by the open honesty and embarrassment on his face, another part snarling deep inside that I wanted it to happen again.
~~~
I went by El Lobo the next morning.
“Carlos, you mentioned that you thought Layden is a sensitive. Tell me a little more about that.”
“He hangs around here a lot,” Carlos said, “and any time there’s an unexplained crime, he comes sniffing around. One of my boys got into a scrape leaving a bar one night and shifted. No one saw him except the idiot he killed, but Layden was in here the next morning asking questions.” Carlos’s mouth puckered and he looked me over. “It’s getting near the full moon. Is he showing an abnormal interest in you?”
I chuckled. “Carlos, I’m not exactly a pinup girl. Any interest a man shows in me is abnormal. Why?”
“Layden dated one of my wolves for over a year. Trisha told me that he always got more amorous near the full moon.”
“They aren’t seeing each other anymore?”
“I did my damnedest to get her to look elsewhere. I finally managed to hook her up with a guy in the Clovis pack and she moved out there. Layden seemed to take it rather hard. She wasn’t a pinup girl, either.”
~~~
I spent the day scouting the areas Carlos and I had picked as likely hunting areas for the rogues. Two of them I wrote off immediately because the ranchers had moved their herds. I spoke with one, and he said his losses were too great, so he’d sold off most of his remaining livestock.
Another ranch I visited revealed guards and dogs.
Of the other two ranches, one hadn’t had a loss in over six months. It was north of Santa Fe. The other one was south of the city, on the back road to Albuquerque. The rancher didn’t live on his land, and there wasn’t any security other than a locked gate. It looked like the easiest pickings to me.
Back in Santa Fe, I called Layden and asked if I could come by his office to look at the reports of livestock attacks. We made an appointment and I hung up.
I had a couple of hours, so I searched out the drug dealer that Tommy Martinez, the rogue’s alpha, had been busted with a year or so before. The bust had ended in probation for both of them, and soon thereafter Tommy had gone rogue.
Victor Montoya was human, the head of a drug gang. Carlos told me it was one of the largest in the city. He and Tommy grew up together and had juvenile records together. He was living with his aunt in a barrio near the river.
I parked a couple of blocks away, checked my derringer, and put on a shoulder holster with a .380 under my jacket.
There were a lot of people out in the neighborhood. As I neared Victor’s address, I noted a concentration of gangbangers centered around the house. I received a lot of leers and catcalls as it became obvious where I was heading.
“Hey, little lady. What’s an old broad like you doing around here?” a massively fat young man with a scraggly beard asked me in Spanish. He was lounging against a low wall.
“I’m looking for Victor,” I said.
“I’m looking for some old ass,” he replied, laughing. His buddies also laughed, as if he’d really said something funny.
“Baby, you wouldn’t know what to do with it,” I said, stepping close to him. I grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. Turning suddenly, I swung him in the air and knocked a couple of his friends down. Then I tightened my grip, cutting off his breathing. His face turned a lovely shade of purple. With my other hand, I reached inside my jacket.
“Anyone reaches for a piece, I use Fatso here for a shield while I shoot you,” I said. “Probably won’t hurt much, Fatso. You got enough fat to absorb a few slugs.”
Someone had the presence of mind to go in the house, and a tall muscled man with a ponyt
ail emerged. He wore an undershirt and tattoos covered every inch of exposed skin.
“Hey, who are you? What the hell do you want?” he shouted.
“I’m looking for someone with some brains,” I answered. “Are you Victor?”
“Who wants to know?” he asked. I noticed that he kept his right hand hidden behind his leg.
“I don’t have a beef with you. I want to talk to you about Tommy.” I shook the fat kid like a rat, then tossed him aside. Before he hit the ground, I was two steps away from Victor and my .380 was pointed at his nose.
“I’m not a cop. Carlos Lopez sent me. I just want to talk, and then I’ll go away.”
“I haven’t seen Tommy in months,” he said.
“Then this will be a pretty short conversation.”
“You shoot me, and you’ll never get out of here alive,” he said.
“You’ll never know if I do. You’ll be dead. And I’ll leave bodies everywhere before I walk out of here.”
He looked at the fat kid coughing and sputtering on the ground ten feet away. It registered that I’d tossed a 300-pound man around like a terrier would a rat.
“You’re like Tommy,” he said.
“No, Tommy is a kid. I’m the real thing.”
He raised his hand straight out to the side, showing me his pistol. Slowly, he tucked the gun in his waistband and raised his hand away from it. I nodded and holstered my pistol.
“Someplace private?” I asked.
He nodded and led me into the house. We went into his bedroom and he closed the door.
Victor knew Tommy was a Were. They’d known each other since they were kids, and when Tommy started to change at puberty, he’d shown his best friend. Tommy had told Victor a lot of things that a human shouldn’t know.
“The last I heard, he was living in Tijeras,” Victor said. “Look, I don’t want any trouble with the pack. I keep my mouth shut. Whatever Tommy is into, he doesn’t tell me. He stops by once in a while to pick up some goods, and that’s all I know. I tell my boys to leave him and his boys alone. They’re a scary bunch.”