Wilding Nights

by Lee Killough

Which probably used up what he knew. She let him leave.

  Watching Blue scurry away though the rag-tag group of on-lookers they had begun attracting, Kerr shook his head. “The Hound of the Baskervilles. Not much help.”

  Lindsay’s lip curled. “His brain’s fried. And he buys into that monster K9 unit shit, too. I can’t figure where these people come up with it.”

  Allison bit back a smile. Where indeed, when so many of Arenosa’s officers had the capacity to do what she had enjoyed...shout, “I’m turning loose the dog!” then Shift and charge in herself.

  The morgue wagon nosed through the on-lookers. Lindsay lowered the yellow tape to let them past. As the wagon halted, Dr. Zena Pedicaris, who along with Dr. Neil Hertzel divided her day between their pathology practice and playing medical examiner, climbed out the passenger side. “Morning, Allison. What do you have?”

  Allison pointed her the building.

  Pedicaris eyed Kerr on the way. “That the new kid on the block?” She gave Allison a wink. “Nice. Don’t I remember that hair from somewhere?”

  “You’ve only been seeing it in uniform for the past six years,” Kerr said.

  Pedicaris grinned at Allison. “First thing you need to do is break him of the sarcasm.” She headed into the building, with Allison, Kerr, and two stretcher attendants following her. “It’ll be odd having Garroway sitting in the Investigations Lieutenant’s office instead of running around with you. I’m surprised you’re not taking his place as squad sergeant.”

  Take on a buttload more paperwork? “Bob Carillo is welcome to the job.” I’d rather eat ground glass, she told Garroway privately after the more polite refusal she gave Captain Estevez when offered the promotion.

  Pedicaris stopped short at the body’s feet. “Oh my.” Circling him, she pulled on two pairs of surgical gloves. “He isn’t one you want to stumble over with a full stomach. Not much question about the cause of death anyway. He fought it. Defense wounds.” She started to pick up a savaged hand, but the arm did not move. After feeling her way up the arm, she tried the joints of a leg. “Pretty advanced rigor.”

  “He died running for his life,” Allison said.

  “Oh, in that case...” Pedicaris shrugged. “Violent exertion depletes ATP in the muscles, brings rigor on faster,” she told one of the stretcher attendants. “Plus he looks in good physical shape...present condition aside. That speeds it up, too.” Muttering under her breath, she continued her examination, poking fingers into the mutilated flesh, peering at loops of gut, inserting a thermometer into the liver to check body temperature. She rolled him over and pulled the remains of his trousers and undershorts down to his knees then shirt and jacket up to his shoulders for a look at his back and buttocks. Finally she straightened. “Okay...looks like he’s lying where he died. Time of death roughly between eleven and three. His stomach’s still intact so I’ll be able to tell you the what and when of his last meal. Anything else you want to know right now other than my opinion that you should be very careful arresting this psycho?”

  “Why any more than usual?” Kerr asked.

  “Because you might lose body parts. This guy has jaws I don’t believe.” Pedicaris stripped off her gloves. “He bit clear through that right wrist--almost took off the hand--and through some ribs on the right.”

  The eyes of the Ident techs and stretcher attendants widened. Kerr smiled wryly at Allison. “Except for the footprints, that could almost make you believe in Blue’s Hellhound.”

  She stared back at him. “Except for the footprints.”

  As though the footprints had any relevance to what Blue saw. Shifting involved energy and perception, no actual shape changing, despite how it felt and appeared. Her people had always known that from seeing their footprints, long before the invention of photography proved it. Instead, they changed power output...going supercharged, kicking into a hyper-adrenaline rush accessible on demand and sustained for as long as one wanted. It affected perception because the Shift’s enveloping energy field registered on the brain as: Big Powerful Dangerous Life-form. Which the mind then interpreted as a shape fitting that criteria for the observer. Although that could be any dangerous predator, from the cultures of the Russian steppes and Europe, Big Powerful Dangerous Life-form had come to North America usually meaning...wolf.

  Allison pulled on latex gloves. “We don’t need a Hellhound to explain this. We’ve all witnessed or been on the receiving end of the phenomenal strength of subjects pumped on adrenaline or feeling no pain...psychotics...junkies high on PCP.” Steering their thoughts that way might make the trauma less astonishing. Sitting down on her heels, Allison started through the dead man’s pockets. All right, sir, help me find her. Tell us all you can about yourself.

  “Hellhound?” Pedicaris said.

  “It’s just what a local crackhead claims to have seen chasing the victim,” Allison said. The attack left the hip pockets intact. Out of one she fished a billfold.

  “A giant dog of some kind,” Kerr said. “Coal black with huge fangs and blazing eyes.”

  Pedicaris cocked a brow. “But if it turned human in here, surely we’re not talking Hellhound but werewolf.”

  It had been inevitable that someone say the word. Allison kept bent over the body. “In either case, we’re talking nonsense.”

  “Besides, it wasn’t a full moon last night,” Kerr said.

  Allison smiled to herself. Oh, the glorious fallacies of myth. The moon neither compelled nor controlled Shifting. It did intensify the hunting urge, of course--a brighter moon meant better light to hunt by--which helped trigger early Shifts. Her first time had been under a glorious Harvest moon. “Kerr, glove up and help.”

  They returned the victim to his back and searched the intact pockets of the leather blazer. Finding keys, a comb, a squirt tube of breath freshener, and a cell phone.

  Kerr picked up the billfold and opened it. “At least we have an ID. According to his driver’s license, he’s Alexander Vincent Demry, age thirty-one, of 1432 Dolphin. The physical descriptors match the victim. The photograph...” He peered from it to the body. “...is more problematic.”

  While the stretcher attendants zipped Demry’s remains into a body bag and loaded him in the wagon, Kerr carried the billfold outside and spread the contents on the hood of Lindsay’s patrol unit. The keys included one for a BMW, so Allison used the unit’s computer to check for vehicles registered to Demry. The query came back listing a silver BMW Z8. She had Dispatch issue an Attempt To Locate on it.

  Kerr shook his head. “A Laguna district address, a hundred grand sports car. Until last night Demry was doing all right in the world. But then...” He flipped out a business card in the billfold. “...sharks usually do.”

  It declared Alexander Demry, J.D., a member of the law firm of Caffey, Schroer, Wentz, and Glass.

  Lindsay ticked his tongue. “I thought you’d got past the bitterness by now. But...” He cocked a brow at Allison. “...I guess divorce is really hell when your father-in-law is a lawyer and your soon-to-be ex is studying to--”

  “I’m sure she’s not interested,” Kerr said.

  Lindsay shrugged and went silent. Kerr finished emptying the billfold.

  In addition to the driver’s license and business cards, it held seventy dollars in cash; a couple of credit cards and gas cards; a medical plan card; Red Cross blood donor card; a membership card for the Anson-Bauer Health Club; a packaged condom. And a card listing his blood type and the names and phone numbers of his doctor, dentist, and people to call in case of emergency. Those included a John Glass with two local numbers--one matching the law firm number--and Richard and Julia Demry with a Dallas area code.

  Kerr frowned at the backs of the driver’s license and Red Cross card. “He has the organ donor box checked and was one unit shy of being an eight-gallon blood donor. A shark with a social conscience.”

  “A good Boy Scout, too.” Lindsay pointed at the breath freshener and condom. “He’s prepared.”
<
br />   The condom and naming a firm partner to be called for emergencies suggested that Demry lacked a significant other. Leaving him vulnerable to sexual enticement, perhaps. Is that how you lured him here, cousin?

  She punched the law office number into her phone. Before making the effort to trace Demry’s movements, she wanted him officially identified.

  But the answering voice informed her Mr. Glass had not come in yet. She left her name and phone number, requesting Glass call her as soon as possible.

  Lindsay shook his head. “You want his boss to identify him? I don’t think even his mama would know him.”

  Kerr tapped the dentist’s name on the phone numbers card. “At least there are dental records to compare to his teeth.”

  They needed to contact the dentist for those records. Maybe give that task to Kerr. Allison ran through a mental checklist of other investigative tasks where he might contribute to the case but not interfere with her investigation. For the clan’s sake, she had to find the hunter first. For Kerr’s sake, too. If he found her, he risked becoming another victim.

  Eyeing the effects, she saw a better job for him...useful, necessary, and guaranteed to keep him safely occupied for hours. “We need names of acquaintances to contact about where he went last night. He seems to have lost his cell phone in the course of fleeing his attacker, but maybe he has a land line at home and a phone book on it.” She tossed Kerr Demry’s keys. “See if his name is the only one on the water and power bills. Talk to neighbors. If you can verify he lives alone, go in and hunt check for a phone. He’s a lawyer. Maybe he has a Rolodex. If you can’t verify he lives along, write up a warrant and find a judge to sign it. I’ll finish here and catch a ride back to the LEC with Ident, then visit the dentist and bring the lawyer down to the morgue for the identification.”

  Kerr nodded and headed for their car.

  4.

  Pulling away from the crime scene, Zane gave in to the grimace he had been careful not to show Allison. With all that running around to verify Demry lived alone, it might be afternoon before he started searching the victim’s place. He was tempted to just go on in. If Demry had a roommate or significant other, surely they would have been listed on the emergency number card. On the other hand, being on this side of town already, with the Law Enforcement Center and courthouse between him and Demry’s neighborhood, he had another, safer shortcut. After all, he did want to make good in Investigations.

  Driving toward West Bayside Boulevard, enjoying the fact that while Impalas and Crown Victorias made up Patrol’s fleet, investigators drove Camaros, Zane fished out his cell phone punched in Crimes Against Person’s number.

  While the phone rang, he ran down all the windows to increase the air flow into the car. The temperature might be reasonable today, but humidity, as always, boosted the heat index. Not that he had a right to complain when he had chosen to live here...as his mother never failed to remind him when he called home.

  “I don’t know why you thought you had to leave Kansas City just because we were angry about you divorcing Susan.”

  Angry? They were angry when he quit law school barely a month into his first year and applied for the police academy...“wasting the intelligence and ambition” that let him finish prep school a year early and earn his bachelor’s degree in three years. Walking out on Susan a year later brought something more akin to a nuclear meltdown. Never mind pointing out their incompatibility. She hated his chosen career, his friends, and his taste in books, and was no more interested in having children than his mother had been, let alone the gang of kids he dreamed about.

  The move to Arenosa not only put a comfortable distance between him and their outrage but he liked the department better than Kansas City’s...small enough to know everyone but somehow supplied with the cop toys of a large department, even an infrared-equipped helicopter.

  At some point his mother always said, “I really don’t understand moving to the Texas coast with your coloring. You’re remembering to wear sun screen and a hat, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Doctor,” he always assured her. His Stetson sat ready on the passenger seat. With physicians for parents, and his father as red-haired as himself, he had been indoctrinated early about the horrors of sunburn and melanoma.

  Sergeant Carillo came on the line. “Kerr? What’s up?”

  Asking a favor of a new boss might be a bit presumptuous but...they wanted to find this maniac as fast as possible...right? “Allison will be briefing you soon. It’s...ugly. But we have a tentative ID of the victim and keys to his apartment. Allison wants me to check it out for an address book, either paper or electronic, and asked me to inquire if you can put a warrant in the works. I’ll be coming downtown shortly.” After he checked one place for Demry’s car.

  “You’ll have your warrant.”

  Whatever reason brought Demry over here, if he drove himself, perhaps he parked at Hilst Basin. They lighted their quay and parking lot and monitored it with video cameras...a result of vandalism to shrimp boats owned by Southeast Asians who came here after the war in Vietnam. The Basin might even have been Demry’s destination. Although it provided mooring and repair services primarily for the shrimp boats and charter fishing boats based here, and even an occasional freighter, the Basin also had slips for a few pleasure craft. Not that Zane could see someone of Demry’s affluence bypassing the amenities of the Coronado Yacht Club or one of the marinas along the north side of the bay for Hilst’s utilitarian facilities, but he might have a friend with a tight budget.

  5.

  Standing inside the barrier tape, Allison made eye contact with the on-lookers in one sweep. Since the removal of the body, the number had dwindled. “Were any of you in this area last night and see or hear anything?”

  No one answered. A few heads shook. Two pairs of eyes skidded away from hers and their owners, both clearly street people, remembered other pressing business.

  Allison brought their sneakaway to a halt with a piercing whistle. “Come back here.”

  Slowly, as though dragged by the force of her crooking finger, the pair trudged back. She took them aside one at a time, ignoring their reek of soiled clothing and unwashed skin. Both denied witnessing anything last night...even when pressed.

  After letting them go, she called Carillo to give him an edited-for-humans report on the situation.

  “Kerr wasn’t kidding about this being ugly,” he said.

  Allison frowned. “When did you talk to him?”

  “A few minutes ago when he called in your request for a warrant to search the victim’s apartment.”

  He just went straight for a warrant? Moves like that could put him ahead of her on the hunter’s trail. She better watch him. Something else needed watching, too. “We’ll need a plan for dealing with the media. They’re going to go crazy over this.”

  “Shit yes,” Carillo said.

  “I suggest the Public Information Office withhold mention of cannibalism and the extent of mutilation. Fortunately, whoever is monitoring the police scanner for the Sentinel didn’t consider a body in the West Bay worth sending a reporter to cover.”

  “Thank God for small favors. I’ll get together with Garroway and see what he thinks.”

  After disconnecting, Allison stepped into the building and moved to a far corner out of any earshot for more private calls. Then she punched in the number for her grandmother’s studio at home. As not only household alpha but the Arenosa clan chief, Honora had to be told about the hunter.

  “We have a problem, Baba,” she said when Honora picked up.

  Honora swore as she explained. “Big problem. That poor man!”

  “How many outsider females are in the area?” Newcomers usually hunted up Honora as soon as possible in order to establish contact with the local clan. No one wanted isolation in a sea of humans.

  “I’ll have to check. If we’re dealing with a rogue, she may be avoiding us, and if this is a juvenile, the lack of adult supervision and restraint tel
ls me she must somehow be on her own and not know how to make contact locally. But I’ll check my records and spread the word to all the alphas to contact you or me with the names of outsiders they’re aware of.”

  Everyone in the clan would understand the danger. With the moon waxing, the hunting drive intensified, and if this hunter let it control her, she could be counted on to go after new victims. More humans would die. And maybe volke, too, as humans remembered their old rivals. Allison’s head echoed with the imagined shrieks of her great-grandmother’s clan burning to death in their beds.

  6.

  Pulling into the Hilst parking lot, Zane spotted a stocky figure in shirt sleeves and loose trousers sauntering across the concrete his direction. Captain Zviad Kakashvili. Zane honked and waved. “Good morning...dobrahye ootrah. Off to play chess...chahmatih?”

  Kakashvili bent down to peer into the car and as always, grinned at Zane’s Russian. “Da. Beating Fernando Silvas. Da svedanyah.”

  Watching the captain walk away, Zane saw the down side to his transfer...losing the daily contact with people like Kakashvili, who along with their stories--comic, tragic, poignant--endlessly fascinated him and enlivened the shift. He stared down the parking lot past the Basin offices, toward the Russian freighter moored at the deep water piers...hull rust streaked, the big cranes on her deck idle and reduced to being perches for the seagulls wheeling and crying overhead. Three years ago the Fyodora Kuzetcheva had limped up the channel past Lacabra Island for repairs that Hilst would make more cheaply than Houston. Only to become stranded when they could not pay the docking fees that accrued during repairs. While she sat waiting for the owners to send the necessary money, fees continued to accumulate. They transferred the cargo to other Russian ships, followed by most of the crew two years later. Only Kakashvili remained aboard...waiting, he had told Zane with a fatalistic shrug as the two of them struggled along in broken English and Zane’s spotty Russian--one benefit of the childhood succession of au pair girls was acquiring a smattering of several languages--for the day the owners gave up, sold the vessel, and pocketed what remained after paying their debts. In the meantime, Kakashvili used the mile the INS permitted him to wander from the ship to spend his days at the Anchorage, playing chess with beach bums and retired sailors who lived in the waterfront hotel and bar.