He turned to Howe instead and said, "Lou's reports from Grand Rapids will be faxed into his lab here, Dr. Howe. He said he would direct them to you."
"Yes, of course. I'm in charge when he's away."
"Will you please call me at Precinct One or the Palmer House?"
"Of course."
"Thanks, Dr. Howe."
"I have to tell you, this whole thing is pretty bizarre," said Howe. "We have already established that the men in that vehicle were attacked by something ferocious; we were guessing a mad dog. Certainly enough fang marks to indicate that the killer was ... inhuman."
"Oh, and Doctor," said Stroud.
"Yes?"
"You're likely to find that the killer took with him one or more of his victim's body parts."
"You really know this guy, don't you, Stroud?"
"Believe me, it's an acquaintance I'm anxious to end."
Stroud found More again.
"McMasters wants me to take him and his men to Kerac's relatives now," she told him.
"And he thinks it's a good idea if you do so without me."
"You know him well."
"Well enough. Watch his hands, Chief."
She nodded. "What about you?"
"I think I'll see you back at the hotel."
"You're sure it's okay?"
"Not a problem."
But it was, and as she walked from sight with McMasters holding her elbow, he worried again for Chief Anna Laughing More, who seemed at this moment like Alice in Wonderland. Phil McMasters carried a lot of weight in the city, knew a lot of powerful people, and he knew how to manipulate people. She was tough in Merimac, but this was Chicago. He wondered about the wisdom of leaving her on her own with McMasters. But he knew he couldn't hold her hand through this, and if he refused to let her go with Phil, she'd only resent him for it.
Part of his mind retained her soft touch and voice as she had sat there beside him, saying, "I'm here with you, Abe."
He got into his car and drove back for downtown Chicago and Precinct One. He'd spend the day looking over other possible leads. Kerac was nowhere near the port where he had first entered the city of several billion arteries, back alleys and other concrete terrain. He could be anywhere now.
-8-
The thin leads coming into the central precinct of downtown Chicago were not the work of Kerac. He seemed to have vanished in the city, or else he was waiting for nightfall to strike again. Meanwhile, members of his family were being interviewed and their homes staked out. At the same time, policemen in plainclothes were interviewing and questioning anyone they could find on the ships and about the port when the P.A. men were murdered. So far, they'd come up with one itinerant fisherman, one wino, two dogs and a cat looking for fish heads to eat. Nothing concrete.
The only good news came late in the day. Lou Cage called from Grand Rapids, and he had finished his reports on the farmhouse killings, tying these to the evidence that placed Kerac at the scene of his initial killings, north of Grand Rapids.
Lou sounded exhausted when he said, "God save us from this evil, Abe."
Stroud knew Cage well. He wasn't a man to exaggerate. "Then it's true. He killed them with his hands and his teeth?"
"Something like that."
"Be straight with me, Lou. I've got to know."
"Faxing the stuff to you and Howe now. Howe's going to think I'm ready for the funny farm myself when he reads this stuff."
"In a nutshell, Lou."
"It all matches--what forensics took on the bodies up here and those of the old people in Merimac, down to the wounds and the blood and the hair samples. Crazy thing is ... hair samples taken from Kerac when he was in custody don't--I repeat, don't--match hair samples taken from the killer at the goddamned scenes of the crimes, Abe."
"What? That doesn't make sense, Lou."
"Tell me about it! I ran it six ways to Sunday. A good defense lawyer could get Kerac off with what we supply him."
"We know it's the same killer from the wound type."
"Wound type, yes ... hair type, no. And another strange thing, Abe."
"Go on."
"Hair found at the scene matches animal samples. It's not human hair, Abe."
"What kind of animal are we talking about?"
"Red to brown to gray matted hair, some ripped out during the struggle--"
"What kind of animal?"
"Closest match we're able to make is that of a wolf."
"Wolf?"
"You heard me correctly."
Stroud said nothing for a long time, recalling the description of the "animal" that the guards at Merimac had given him. Stories of an animal of some sort that sprang out on the roadway, causing a collision, had also been reported at the border in Indiana where two policemen were killed when they encountered Kerac. Abe knew the inner workings of a police precinct well enough to know that anyone calling in with a sighting of a wolf on the streets of Chicago would become locker room grist for the joke mill, and certainly would be cast in the always-full in-basket for crank calls and nut cases to be looked into by the janitor. Stroud knew he'd have to be the janitor on this one, that perhaps some clue lay buried in the waste.
"A wolf?" he repeated over the phone.
"How's it going there?"
Stroud told Lou about the two P.A. men, the scene in the car. He didn't mention his blackout or the images he had seen during it.
Lou cursed into the phone, relieving his grief. Then he said, "I'm doing no good here. I'll be back in the morning. If you see Howe, tell him to keep this between us, for now."
"Will do."
"I'm too close to pension for this."
"Don't worry, Lou. You called it right. We've got the same mystery here now as we had at the farmhouse."
"This ... this guy ... Kerac, he must have some kind of animal fur he carries around with him--you know Indians--and he must be one hell of a strong sonofabitch is all I can tell, Abe."
"See you soon. I'll call and send the jet up for you."
"Thanks for the ride, pal."
Stroud knew he meant more than the plane ride. Abe thought about what the infallible Dr. Cage had told him, and he wanted now to read the reports faxed to Howe. He went to find Howe in an adjoining building.
Dr. Howe, a thin, balding man with glasses and an austere face, rarely smiled, but he was smiling now as the report from Grand Rapids was coming over. What in the report amused him, Stroud could not possibly understand, unless he liked gore ... or unless he intended using the report against Cage in some political intrigue only he was privy to. Howe was Cage's subordinate. Stroud saw now how far out on a limb Lou had gone for him on this matter.
"I just spoke to Dr. Cage," said Stroud. "He's faxed the report. I'd like to see it."
"Coming over now."
"You find it amusing?"
"It smacks of the supernatural, I must say. Man and wolf ... lycanthropy, all that."
"Guy's an Indian," said Stroud. "Who knows, maybe he can turn into a wolf."
"One explanation for the locked-car murders. But suppose this man has convinced himself that he can shape-change? That he looks at his own hands, face, body, and sees a horrendous monster there, and then he goes on a rampage? Is it then mental, or is it physical? Is it only imagined, or is it somehow made real by the fact it is believed? This kind of question intrigues me."
"Psychiatry was never my strong suit," said Stroud, "but you're into the science?"
"An avocation ... once took courses toward a degree, turned to medicine instead."
This eased Stroud's concern about Ira Howe. Howe's interest in the case was very high, and he was making some judgments of his own about their quarry, Kerac.
"Just imagine what kind of a mind this man must have to so reconstruct his own self-image as to become an animal, to kill and feed as an animal. It's mind-boggling."
"Can that possibly account for the marks left on the bodies?"
"The intensity of the attack, yes. As to
the physical rents, tears, bites, to a degree, yes..."
"But?"
"However, and this must surely be bothering Dr. Cage, the teeth marks are not those of a human being, any more than the hair this man leaves is human ... you see?"
"Then he is no longer human?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean, then?"
"He has become what he has dreamed."
The thought of it frightened Stroud as he had never been frightened before, realizing how many times he had felt himself be taken apart piece by piece by a dream, a nightmare, losing his own self, losing his way back. He'd always attributed this to the steel plate in his head, as part of the symptoms of the tortures, blackouts and seizures it put him through. But here was a man telling him that there was a human being on the planet who could reconstruct himself in the image of a hideous beast through the awful power of his own mind and be trapped by that power into a life of horror.
"Are you all right, Dr. Stroud?"
"Yes, yes ... May I see the report?"
"By all means. Use my office." Dr. Howe was very solicitous, asking if he'd like coffee as well.
"Yes, thank you. Oh, and Dr. Howe, Dr. Cage asked that we keep the reports to ourselves until he can be on hand."
Howe, going for the outer office, bobbed his head up and down at this, his bow tie coming a little loose. "Fascinating case, really," he said on leaving.
Stroud's hot black coffee turned cold as he read Cage's report. He felt himself go cold with the findings, too. Findings indicated that in all the victims attributed to John Kerac, they were not dealing with the usual slash-and-dice mutilation killer, that in fact the wounds were inflicted by some force that Cage was incapable of pinpointing. But the words "animal," "catlike" and "wolflike" came up in his report--as if Cage believed that Kerac somehow commanded some sort of creature, a bobcat or a cougar, to do his bidding for him. This seemed as mad as the lycanthropy possibility that Ira Howe had tried to hoist on Stroud. Stroud had seen some amazing peculiarities in his lifetime; he had been privy to the Andover vampire colony in southern Illinois, and there were reams of unexplained phenomena in the literature of archeology, such as the power and mystery of the origin of the crystal skulls from the Mayan city of Belize, and the horned human skulls once unearthed in northern Pennsylvania which had been carbon-dated to prehistory.
The cast made of the print found at the farmhouse pointed to a large "wolflike" creature, possibly a disfigured one at that. Cage could not say. The slash wounds, he was more specific about. The depth and breadth of the tearing instrument indicated sharp, long teeth like those of a lion or tiger. Other marks were the work of talons or claws. Furthermore, there was sure evidence that whatever killed the Maclins, Perotto and the hunting group that Kerac had guided into the woods of northern Michigan fed on the bodies, or parts of the bodies it ripped off--that Kerac had cannibalized those remains. All most peculiar. Little wonder that Cage worried about the report going public.
Stroud thought of the vision he'd had at the Port Authority, staring into the backseat of the bloody tomb Kerac had made of the car. He thought of his feelings. They'd been those of heightened sensitivities: touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing--like those of an animal. He recalled the depth of his fear while he was inside the mind of John Kerac. He recalled the hairy forearms and hands and the odor that threatened to overwhelm him. Stroud then thought back to his first nightmares, those that had driven him to Merimac. They had been filled with the emotions of a frightened animal.
But could John Kerac have such power over such a vicious killer beast? Could he have had an intelligent dog, a pit bull that followed his master's command to kill? This explanation appealed to Abe's sense of balance; it would be tidy and acceptable to others, far more so than tales of a "beast master" who controlled passing wolves, and certainly more presentable than shape-changing from a man into a wolf.
It was late, the clock ticking toward dusk. Somewhere in the brisk Chicago night, Kerac would kill again. Of this Stroud hadn't any doubt. Of Kerac's "animal cunning" he had no doubt. Kerac would elude capture and frustrate the usual police procedures, for they had no idea what they were dealing with. For that matter, neither did Abraham Stroud.
Was their quarry no longer human? Did he command a beast at his side? Or was he the beast?
Stroud heard others coming. Ira Howe was escorting McMasters and Anna More into the office. Stroud was tired and slow to respond when McMasters said, "Having fun, Abe? Got to tell you, Kerac's family doesn't seem to have a clue about why he would suddenly become a mass murderer ... but then, no one ever does, do they? Got Cage's report, I hear. Let's have a look."
Stroud was looking at Chief More, who hadn't said a word. "Did you speak with Kerac's people?"
"Are you kidding?" said McMasters, taking the report from Stroud. "She spoke to them in native tongue ... had to translate for me. She's smart, a real smart gal, the way she put them at ease ... got them on her side ... real pro."
"As I am aware," said Stroud, still looking for Anna More to reveal something behind her stony gaze when he saw something lunge behind the eyes. It had kicked in when McMasters said, got them on her side.
"They trust me because I was honest with them," she said. "Poor people ... living like they are ... hearing this about Kerac."
"You knew them from before?"
"Yes, of course. They moved to Chicago looking for work, trying to escape poverty ... but they haven't come very far."
"Around-the-clock surveillance on the two apartments," said Kerac. "Luck for us that they're in adjoining buildings. If Kerac goes near them, we'll have him sure."
"In his present state of mind, if he does go near them," said Stroud, "he could kill them all. You know that, don't you?"
"Don't worry," said McMasters.
"Are the family members worried?"
"Very," she said, going to the window and staring out. "The old man, the grandfather, said that John must be bitten by the Wendigo."
"Native American horseshit," said McMasters, stopping in his scanning of Cage's report to look up at her. "Superstition, right, Chief More?"
"Wendigo is Ojibway for a creature of the night that steals children from their beds and eats them alive. It comes with the wind on the silent feet of a beast that strikes more quickly and surely than the panther, and it has a lust for human flesh."
"Jesus," said Phil McMasters, reading Cage's words further. "Sounds like Lou Cage has been in the fuck"--he stopped to correct himself in front of More--"damned woods too long. You read this, Stroud. What's he talking about here?"
"Far as I can tell, Lou's got a killer with fangs and claws; not your conventional knife-wielding psycho, Phil."
"Between the Indians and you, Stroud, and now Cage ... I think the joke's gone far enough."
"No one expects you to believe," said More, "but there are dark and mysterious powers at work in Kerac."
"Bad blood, bad chemistry, a screwed-up mind and fucked genes, maybe, but he's no supernatural monster that's going to come into Chicago and wipe out whole populations, Chief."
Werewolf's Grief (Bloodscreams #2) Page 8