Werewolf's Grief (Bloodscreams #2)

by Walker, Robert W.

  "I fully understand your reluctance to believe me, Chief Laughing More."

  "You can call me Chief More," she corrected him. "Everyone else does." She didn't appear in a laughing mood, nor, Stroud guessed, did she display laughter very often while in uniform. "Listen, Dr. Stroud, I'm not much of a believer in your ... in powers of precognition, is it called? Nor do I much hold with psychic investigators. You may as well know it."

  "Refreshing," he replied cryptically.

  And for a long moment, she tried to decipher his meaning without benefit of explanation. Finally, she repeated the word in puzzlement. "Refreshing?"

  "I only wish everyone were as honest around me, Chief."

  "Oh, you will find me honest, all right--honest Injun, as they say, Doctor."

  He managed a weak smile at this, unsure how to take her remark. "I've fought very hard to get where I am today, Dr. Stroud."

  "I can see that you have."

  "Can you? Really? You have any idea how entrenched the KKK is in Michigan? The Knights of the Baldies? Ordinary redneck mentality? Any idea how hard it is for an Indian in Michigan to beat the reservation system, the inadequate school system, the poverty, the prejudice? No, I suppose not."

  "Perhaps not ... Certainly not firsthand, but I'm here to learn."

  "I thought you came to provide us with lavish information on the crime and the killer, Dr. Stroud. I had no idea you were here to gather information. Are you writing a book?" Her sarcasm came full to the surface now.

  "I used to be a cop, Chief More. I know how you feel when an outsider steps in, but--"

  "Chicago cop. What do you know about Michigan?"

  "I know serious crime is on the rise here, like most places, 686 murders in Detroit alone..."

  "This isn't Detroit. This is--"

  "And 6,458 serious crimes reported statewide."

  "So you've done your homework, and now you know how Merimac works?"

  He frowned and scratched his ear and moved uneasily in the car seat beside her. "I don't pretend to understand the people or the politics, but I had expected a little common courtesy after flying here at my own expense to look into this matter and offer--at no expense to Merimac--any assistance I can render. What the hell is it, Chief? Election time in Merimac?"

  "Why, you are very perceptive at that, Dr. Stroud."

  "Election's coming up, huh?"

  "It's always election day in Merimac. You may think Michigan is cozy, Middle America, the hunting and fishing paradise in the brochures, and all is beautiful and serene in the Michigan forests, that all's right in the world. What bad could happen in Michigan? How about we begin with a red population that is still treated like animals?"

  He could see she had a large chip on her shoulder, and that he wasn't about to dislodge it here and now. He was a white man and she was a red woman; he was an outsider, and she was an insider. He was a civilian while she was a police chief.

  "Is Kerac ... is he Indian?"

  "He was."

  "What do you mean, was? Has he been shot?"

  She looked across at him. "No, he is still at large, but he is also Ninatoo; you might call it banished."

  "Banished?"

  She swallowed hard. "When an Ojibway Indian murders, he is cast out of the race of the first people, the Ojibway. Kerac was a guide. He led several men into the Manistee National Forest a month ago. He slaughtered all three of the other men."

  "Three white men?"

  "On holiday ... Hunters. Anyway, he was apprehended and sent here to await trial. He had been judged completely insane. He'd ... he had eaten the flesh of the white men."

  "Cannibalized them?"

  "Yes."

  "All three?"

  "Yes, like a wild animal might."

  Stroud breathed deeply, his skin crawling with the image. "Autopsies were done on the dead men?"

  "In Grand Rapids, yes."

  "And here, with Dr. Perotto and the other dead man?"

  "Our town, the hospital pathologist performs any autopsy."

  "I see." Stroud knew that hospital pathologists were not the most reliable people where autopsy was concerned. "What about Grand Rapids? Do they have a municipal pathologist?"

  "Dr. Henry Sands, but he's second-rate at best."

  "Why do you say so?"

  "Let me put it this way: I've worked cases with him before. I know."

  "Good enough for me."

  She gave him a quick gaze. "What do you hope to find in a pathology report, anyway?"

  "Connections, patterns ... not sure."

  "Oh, you'll see patterns, all right--patterns on the bodies, gashes. Whatever Kerac used on these men--" She shivered involuntarily. "I've never seen such brutality before, I'll admit that. I'm sure it's nothing to a Chicago cop. Want to swing by the morgue first before going out to the pen?"

  "Is it on the way?"

  "Have to go through town, then on to the other side."

  "Fine, whatever you say, Chief."

  "Funny thing about Kerac and me, Stroud..."

  "Oh, what's that?"

  "We grew up together on the same reservation ... went to the same schools--"

  "Ever figure him for this?"

  "He was nothing but a shy, sweet boy when I knew him. Big and clumsy and shy, like a bear up here," she said, pointing to her head. "Not very smart, but keen as a tracker and a guide. We have one other thing in common, Dr. Stroud."

  "And what is that?"

  "I'm also banished from my tribe."

  She fell silent, and Stroud sensed that it would be unwise to ask her why she shared this fate with Kerac.

  She turned on a local radio station, the announcer speculating on the deaths at the prison. She turned it to another station that was obviously Indian-operated, the music being distinctly American Indian. It made for an unusual chorus between them for a moment before she said, "You see, my people live in the past. Songs, myths, religion, all strong medicine ... so why do they hurt for food and clothes and doctoring? They resent me because I'm a traitor in their eyes, twice over. Number one, you don't take on the work of a warrior--a man's job. Number two, you don't stand with the white man. 'Fraid I did both."

  "How close is the reservation?" he asked as the car passed shacks and delapidated mobile homes.

  "You're in it. Have been the entire way. Merimac is largely reservation land. The whites left the scrub grass and rocks for us."

  The land around was dry, arid and brown, the grass still dead from winter kill; no amount of sunlight could heal this area or ever hope to revive it, or so it seemed at the moment. Ashen woods, thick with naked branches, touched the sky all around. The timid homes had the requisite broken-down car, children's toys, trash cans and tottering fences. It was a sad, drab place, filled with evidence of poverty and the typical Indian ills. Gambling was a way of life here, as was drinking. Every business establishment sported a whiskey sign alongside a lottery sign and a banner proclaiming one-armed bandits inside.

  The car rambled past a general store that was falling in, the proprietor's name illegible with years of weathered paint and peeling. "Not exactly Palm Beach," she muttered.

  You grew up here?

  he wanted to ask her, but he didn't bother forming the words. She could read it in his gaze. Instead, he asked, "How about the prison? Has it put any of your people to work?"

  She laughed. "Most on the inside--as inmates, I'm afraid."

  He decided to drop the subject. She turned the patrol car onto a side-street going for the hospital. "Our morgue isn't much, but we do the best we can, Dr. Stroud." The hospital itself is small by modern standards, the construction early sixties."

  "Please," said Stroud, "no apologies necessary."

  "You sure about that? Might want to wait until you meet our so-called coroner. He wears several hats: M.D., pathologist, coroner. Unfortunately, he doesn't wear any one very well. Name is Cruise. Came up here from New York City several years ago. Strange sort of guy..."

&nb
sp; "Strange?"

  "Exception to the rule, you might say."

  "What rule is that?"

  "For what we call an outlander, he fits right in on the reserve. Friends in high places in both the City Council and with the elders--"

  "In the tribe?"

  "No, the church! Yes, the tribe. What else are we talking about here?" Her voice sounded like the rock singer Cher, especially when she was angry.

  "No one else from outside ever fit in so well. And you're a home girl, and you aren't allowed in ... Yeah, begin to see what you mean."

  "It's not like that. Not like I dislike him because of my situation. Don't misunderstand. There's just something sleazy about our Dr. Cruise."

  "Maybe it's just that he's from New York, and you don't have much tolerance for people from big cities coming into your town. Correct me if I'm wrong."

  "You're wrong."

  He wondered if she was asking him to read between the lines, as one cop to another. Small towns, as a rule, were tight as balled fists all over the nation; some may as well be villages in Europe for all they knew of world events, geography. They were that insular and parochial. Most people in such places as Merimac still believed that the moon landing had been a fake, created by the wizardry of television. No, they didn't as a rule take kindly to strangers. He knew this from his own experience in relocating to Andover, Illinois, from Chicago. There, to this day, he was still considered an "outlander." Here, in sleepy, little Merimac, which had its own tight social structure and levels and little political intrigues to do with school boards and zoning laws, taxes and taking care of business, anyone not born down the street must surely be suspect and might live a lifetime here and still remain unacceptable. This category ought to fit a doctor moving in from the Big Apple, as well as make room for those "excommunicants" banished from the "tribe."

  She radioed ahead to the hospital.

  Studying her, Stroud figured Chief Laughing More as a hardworking, tough-minded cop than anything else, and that she would love nothing more than to drag John Kerac back here by his heels to stand trial for multiple murder. Maybe such an act would reinstate her with her people as well as boost her in the general population of whites. He was not sure. He thought she'd be a good cop anywhere. This led him to wonder why she hung on here. Was it the money? Not likely. Family? Could be. Or was it simply the usual fears that small-town girls grow up with? Typical small-town mentality held that you didn't abandon your roots, no matter how shriveled or dead they were.

  Stroud understood roots perhaps better than most, but he also knew that some roots confined, strangled, or twisted people.

  Maybe she'd just worked too hard to give up her rank here, to start over somewhere else. Maybe she'd convinced herself she could not make it outside Merimac, or ever escape her roots.

  Finally he asked what he hadn't earlier. "You grew up near here?"

  "We're here," she said, averting the question.

  She pulled into a no-parking zone and stopped the engine. "Come on, I'll introduce you to our evidence."

  Her tone was set in the concrete of a dare. He merely frowned and climbed out. At the door someone was there to meet them, a gofer for Dr. Cruise. The young resident droned on endlessly as he directed Stroud, Chief Laughing More dropping by the wayside to catch up with a nurse friend who offered her a cup of coffee and some gossip.

  -4-

  The lacerations--approximately twenty-four hours old now--were still filthy--vile, in fact. Stroud had to concentrate on the ghastly wounds so intensely as to not think of the remains lying before him as ever having been human. The ugly, puckering holes left where Perotto's shoulder socket dangled amid a myriad of jagged edges and matted blood were not the work of anything--anything--Stroud had ever seen. And for a second or two, he felt almost relieved. His first fear had been that here in Michigan, as in Illinois, he might have to face another vampire outbreak. And yet, vampires he understood; vampires had some reasoning and logic behind the killing. This creature they called Kerac was not like that. His murderous impulses were not motivated by the desire to feed, or even the desire to live. His killing instinct rose from the need to kill. Perotto's body alone told Stroud this in no uncertain terms.

  "Here's the leg the two guards located just inside the gate," said Dr. Cruise, carrying the limb in a cushion of white linen. "As you can see, there are several unusual marks on the flesh aside from the rent itself. These, in my estimation, are tears where the guy did what he did to the others--took out several bites."

  Stroud swallowed hard, feeling his morning's breakfast welling up. He held on, taking a moment to look directly at the fetid white flesh of the thigh. He examined this parcel of flesh in silence until Cruise said, "Left arm was not found until much later by the dogs ... in a clearing about six miles from the prison. Picked almost clean."

  "You ever see anything like this in your experience, Dr. Cruise?"

  "Never. What this man did ... it defies the senses."

  "How did he do it?"

  "Best guess?"

  "Best guess."

  Cruise paced, the sign of a man who didn't want to answer directly. He picked about the cold, clinical room, avoiding Stroud's eyes. "I don't pretend to know what kind of weapon the man used or how he got hold of it, Dr. Stroud. All I'm certain of is that he cut these men up and gorged himself with their flesh. He's a madman, a maniac."

  "The Merimac Maniac," said Chief Laughing More, who stepped through the door. "That's what the press is calling Johnny Kerac now. I've got to get into the field, Doctors; seems my men have located more of Johnny's work, a farmhouse down at Green Lake."

  "Damn," said Stroud while Cruise dropped his head.

  "When're you people going to apprehend this fiend, More?" asked Cruise.

  "We're doing our..." Stroud saw that she wanted to swear, but she swallowed the foul words. "Don't worry too much, Dr. Cruise. If he's true to form, he's trying to get as far from here as possible, maybe to the lake."

  "Lake Michigan?" asked Stroud.

  "He has family in Chicago. My guess is he'll try to get there. I've already alerted the police all along his route. Contrary to public opinion"--she stopped to glare at Cruise--"we're doing our jobs. We didn't lose Kerac. It took the idiots at the pen to do that. Now, are you coming out to examine the crime scene, or are you too busy, Dr. Cruise?"

  "Damned straight I'm too busy. What the hell would a crime scene investigation of this cannibal tell us, More? We know all we need to know about this creep!"

  "Not exactly," said Stroud, interrupting. "We don't know the murder weapon. We don't know how he concealed it. We don't know if he worked alone, and from your reports, Dr. Cruise, we don't even know the depth of the wounds inflicted on Perotto and Holms, or for that matter if they match the wounds up in Grand Rapids. Didn't it occur to you to send for a copy of those reports?"

  Cruise was momentarily stunned, surprised by Stroud's sudden attack. Then he said, "Do you know how goddamned shorthanded we are around here? How much is on my shoulders? I practically run this place. Hell, they don't pay me enough to take abuse from an Indian girl playing police chief, and ... and ... what'd you say you were? Some sort of rich playboy archeologist? What goddamned right've you to come in here and tell me how to do my business?"