In the Company of Wolves: Thinning The Herd

by Larranaga, James Michael

  He dodged her advice. “How’s your research?”

  “You don’t care about my research. Stop changing the subject.”

  He pulled her in closer. “I care about your research, seriously.” He knew that the reason she solo camped last summer was because she was tracking Bigfoot. She wasn’t working for the DNR, she was an intern for a Facebook page that investigated Bigfoot sightings.

  “I hear the sarcasm in your voice,” Zoe said. “But we have thousands of fans who believe in this research. I’ll convert you to a believer soon enough.”

  “Looking forward to it,” Quin said with a kiss. “I gotta run. You can hang out here if you’d like.”

  She glanced around the apartment, unimpressed. “All right, text me later. Hey, what’s the password to your Wi-Fi?”

  Quin stepped into the hallway and turned back. “Bigfoot.”

  She smiled. “See? You want to believe.”

  He rushed down the hallway. He’d be late for his first full day at the office if this breakfast meeting wasn’t quick. He ran down a staircase, stepped out into the icy morning air, and jogged to the coffee shop around the corner.

  Spyhouse Coffee Shop was a café in the Lowry Hill neighborhood in the shadow of downtown Minneapolis. The shop attracted business executives in their navy suits as well as dirty street musicians with all their possessions stuffed into grimy backpacks. The staff updated the limited menu by scribbling artfully on a dry-erase board with red and green markers. The tin ceiling had too many coats of black peeling paint. The place was aglow with laptops and phones. Here, the coffee was expensive, but Wi-Fi was free.

  Quin found it ironic that his covert breakfast meeting twenty miles away from Safe Haven LLC was at a place called Spyhouse. He noticed Lunde straddling a metal chair, reading the paper. His big head swayed over two cups of coffee.

  Quin ordered a cup of hot water from the counter and pulled a tea bag from his pocket.

  At the table, he threw his trench coat over a chair and sat down across from Lunde. “I drink tea, not coffee. I won’t pay three dollars for a cup of java.”

  “Oh, well, I’ll drink it myself.” Lunde looked comfortable in his green flannel shirt and turtleneck. Quin felt overdressed. He rarely wore real people’s clothes, but it was required for this assignment. He had to blend in with the rest of the wolves.

  He hoped Lunde wouldn’t take too long. “I’ve only got a couple of minutes.”

  “You amaze me, you know that?” Lunde said, shaking his head. “I nearly did cartwheels when I saw you at the mansion yesterday.”

  Quin took a sip of his bitter homemade tea, imagining big Lunde even attempting a summersault, like a brown bear in the circus. “What can I say? I got in.”

  “Cassy disappears Christmas Eve, I call you on the twenty-sixth, and by January second, you’re working there?” Lunde said in awe. “You’d make a good private investigator.”

  “I’m not a private dick,” Quin said adamantly. “You guys should know better by now.”

  He made it clear where he drew the line between private investigator and bounty hunter. He preferred the latter title because that was really what he did when he wasn’t tracking wolves. He helped the DNR find injured hunters in the woods or track down lost campers. For some reason, weekend warriors always got lost when carrying a canoe over their heads.

  Word had spread about Quin’s natural talent for tracking, and the FBI called on him whenever they had unusual missing person cases. That is, until the now-famous “Quin incident,” or “Quincident,” as the feds often called it. After tracking an escaped convict, Quin had nearly beaten the man to death. The convict sued, the bureau paid a generous settlement, and Quin got an indefinite vacation at a psychiatric clinic. The FBI told him to work on his anger and to get in touch with his inner Indian child. Eventually they’d get back in touch with him.

  He was glad to be working again, though, and relieved that Lunde and the bureau were taking the risk to hire him for another assignment.

  “How did you get in?” Lunde asked with an almost jealous expression.

  “You said Cassy White vanished, so I knew there was a position open. Told them I was a student looking for class credits,” Quin said. To him, the idea seemed so straightforward; he wondered why the bureau hadn’t done it.

  “And they hired you so quickly?” Lunde asked.

  “Looks easier than it was. I called them daily and sent my resume several times. Harold Reiker, one of the men you questioned yesterday, is running a background check on me.”

  “They’re thorough, huh?”

  “I guess,” Quin said. “Your intern must’ve made them nervous. You think they discovered she’s a fed?”

  Lunde pushed the newspaper aside and clenched his paper cup. “No way. She was one of our best. We were making excellent progress, and her background was clean.”

  “Any chance your undercover agent actually eloped like they’ve been saying?” Quin asked.

  “That was her cover. We had to bring in another agent to help her out,” Lunde said. “Something happened to both of them.”

  Quin realized that if something did happen to them, then the company he now worked for was a dangerous place. When law enforcement disappears, it’s serious. Pilson’s bloody body in the street was still at the top of his mind. “What do you think happened yesterday?”

  “Fits perfectly,” Lunde said. “Like I told you last week, our agent said something was going down. She just didn’t know when.”

  Quin picked up Lunde’s newspaper and read the headline. “SENATOR ALMQUIST BEGINS WORK IN WASHINGTON.” No stories about yesterday’s shooting on the front page, just an article about a young politician who had a runaway campaign that landed him in Washington. The editor of the paper buried the shooting story in the back of the metro section.

  “They set up Pilson. They murdered him, right?”

  “That’s what our agents were working on,” Lunde said. “We don’t have any hard evidence, but five of Ben Moretti’s last twenty clients have died of unnatural causes. Usually it’s an accident like a car wreck, but one of his clients mysteriously died of an overdose.”

  “And one was shot in the chest,” Quin said.

  “What’s the likelihood that twenty-five percent of his terminally ill clients suddenly die for reasons other than their diagnoses?” Lunde asked, his fuzzy eyebrows rising high on his head. He was one of those ultra-hairy men who always has a five-o’clock shadow and sprouts of hair sticking out of his nose.

  “Did you know that mansion once belonged to an employee of Tom Petters?” Quin asked.

  “Yeah, we don’t think there’s any connection between the two groups. It just shows how greed attracts greed,” Lunde said. “There are so many white-collar thieves here in Minnesota.”

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?” Quin asked.

  Lunde started to sip out of the second cup of coffee. “They’re killing off their clients, which could make this a whole new breed of Ponzi scheme.”

  Quin had suspected as much. “Not too subtle about it either. Killing a client in their own front yard.”

  Lunde smeared lip balm on his cracked lips, licking as he spoke. “Actually, it may be the perfect murder. They set up a scene that looks like an angry motorist pulled a gun. The deputy is confused and shoots Pilson. Ben Moretti doesn’t even have to pull the trigger.”

  Quin nodded and tugged at his earring, remembering that he probably should’ve taken it off before heading to work; he had gotten too many awkward stares yesterday. “Sounds to me like they’re preparing for something bigger than Pilson.”

  Lunde leaned his wide elbow on the table. “Yeah, like what?”

  Quin looked across the café at two Gen Yers in line holding ceramic mugs they’d brought from home. They were probably trying to save trees by not drinking from paper cups. Trees grow back.

  Quin took a sip from his paper cup. “These men are wolves. When wolves prepare for a long win
ter, they sometimes go on a killing spree. There’s a bigger policy out there.”

  He watched as Lunde thought about his comment for a while, chewing on his chapped lower lip.

  “How big?” he asked.

  “Christopher, one of the newer sales reps, told me yesterday he had a lead on a $10 million policy,” Quin said. “Could be they’re cashing in policies, saving up for a bigger kill.”

  Lunde’s eyes widened. “You might be onto something. Who owns the policy?”

  “Don’t know. I didn’t get the name.”

  Lunde gulped his coffee. “You’re on the inside now. Find out who the prospective client is.”

  “I thought the plan was to find those two agents, dead or alive,” Quin said, concerned that his theory would sidetrack Lunde.

  Lunde cracked his fat knuckles. “Tell me what’s going on at Safe Haven. If they’re saving up money to make a big kill, I want to know who it is.”

  Better redraw the line for Lunde; he’s not listening.

  “That’s detective work. I don’t do detective—”

  “You’ll see everything as our agents on the inside saw it,” Lunde argued. “You need to get into their database and make me a copy of their list of clients and investors. Find out who owns that big policy.”

  Quin wasn’t sure about this new twist to his assignment. Tracking people dead or alive? That was easy money. He’d find them, get paid, and be home within two weeks. Collecting evidence to nail some white-collar Ivy League bastards in court could take months.

  “I don’t know, Spencer,” Quin said, sipping his tea. “Doesn’t sound like my kind of assignment.”

  “Do you know how many favors I had to call in to get the staff at the insane asylum to let you in on this?” Lunde asked.

  Insane asylum—is that what the team at the bureau was calling it now? When he entered Saint Francis, they told him it was a clinic. He wasn’t insane. He might have a slight problem with anger management, as his shrink called it, but the clinic wasn’t for insane people. “It’s an outpatient facility. I’m not nuts.”

  Lunde scratched his bristly face. “Inpatient, outpatient, I don’t care what you call it, Quin. There are crazy dorks shuffling in and out of that place.”

  Lunde was right, but Quin felt uncomfortable with these labels. “I go there because the FBI lawyers plea bargained their way out of a case, and I was the pawn. They blamed that beating incident on me.”

  “You kicked in a man’s teeth,” Lunde said.

  Don’t answer him. Take three deep breaths. Look out the window, watch the traffic slip by on the ice, and be cool. Refocus your attention, just like Kirsten taught you.

  “He bit me first,” Quin said. He couldn’t resist. He had to tell his side of the story.

  “Then you performed a rain dance around him while he lay bleeding in a street?” Lunde asked.

  “OK, that part was crazy.”

  He found it funny how the story had changed as it passed from one FBI agent to the next. “It wasn’t exactly a rain dance,” he said, laughing at the thought of it. He always thought the incident so ridiculous.

  Why do escaped convicts have so many rights?

  “Are you on medication?” Lunde asked.

  “I take a pill once in a while,” he admitted.

  “Good. Then keep taking it and keep your mouth shut,” Lunde said. “This assignment is under the table, and I mean way under the table. My ass will be in a sling if anyone from the bureau finds out I’ve hired you. You always call me directly.”

  Quin took another one of Lunde’s business cards. “I won’t say a word.”

  Lunde leaned all his big burly weight on the table. “Everyone I’ve spoken to says you’re the best. This is your chance to prove it. I’m watching you, Quin. If you go wacko or Rambo on me, the whole thing is over.”

  “I’m not a wacko, and I’ll dial back on the Rambo too,” he insisted. But he knew the more he said it, the less people believed him. “I can handle this job.”

  “I don’t care who draws first blood. Don’t lose control of your anger. Just make me a copy of their database,” Lunde said.

  Quin sipped his homebrew. He enjoyed the calming effect. “First things first,” he said. “Let me find the agents, then we’ll talk about the rest.”

  Like how much more money he would get by supplying the client list. He wasn’t stupid; he knew he had a chance to earn more here. He could see the opportunity written on Lunde’s anxious face.

  Quin arrived on the grounds of Safe Haven LLC, steering his pickup truck with one hand as he balanced his cup of tea with the other. His favorite kind of snow had begun to fall—a winter storm with large, feathery flakes, as if someone had slit open a down pillow and shaken it into the wind. This would’ve been a great day to sleep in. He parked in an empty space next to the carriage house and walked up the sidewalk, his loafers sliding on the ice.

  “Caw! Caw! Caw!” a raven challenged him from the top of the mansion roof. Quin saw the other one too, high up in an oak tree with its wings spread, twisting in the wind like an old weather vane. He paused, looking up at the raven on the roof.

  What are you saying to me, friend?

  Then, as if the bird could read his thoughts, it leaped from the red clay tile roof and swooped down on him, flapping its black wings in his face. Quin waved his arms and threw his fists into the sky before slipping. The cold sidewalk was hard, unforgiving, and his hands burned from the fall.

  By the time he looked up again, the raven was with its friend in the oak tree, hopping from branch to branch.

  Those birds know something. Quin stood, brushing the snow and salt off his coat and pants.

  Quin swiped his pass card and stepped into the warmth of the wolf den. Before closing the heavy door, he looked back up into the trees and noticed the ravens were gone. He hurried down the dark hallways, retracing the path Harold had blazed with him the day before.

  Despite the shooting incident, the staff seemed normal today. The actuaries tapped their calculators; secretaries and assistants made phone calls; no small groups huddled together gossiping about Pilson; everyone slaved away with the rest of corporate America as if nothing had happened.

  In the main foyer, he approached the secretary. She wore a headset while she commanded the phones and transferred callers. She was jerky, almost robotic in her movements. Behind her, through the arched windows, the snow continued dropping, covering the back lawn and any evidence of yesterday.

  “Hello, I’m Quin Lighthorn, the new intern,” he said.

  “Of course you are. I’m Mary Ann,” she said with hardly a smile. She was nicer on the phone than in person. She handed him an envelope. “I cannot deliver messages; this office is too big. Here are the instructions for recording your voicemail greetings. If you’re expecting visitors, call me so I can get them a temporary pass. I’ve also included a map of the building. I marked the rooms you have access to with your security pass.”

  Quin stuck the package under his arm. “What a day we had here yesterday, huh?”

  “We’re not supposed to talk about it. You’re almost late for the sales meeting in the conference room,” she said before mechanically turning away to answer a call.

  “Where’s the conference room?” he asked. He fumbled with the envelope. The map showed three conference rooms on the second floor, each named after a region in Italy: Tuscany, Puglia, and Lombardy.

  She covered her headset. “Tuscany is the first staircase on your left. At the top of the stairs, take a right,” she said before adjusting her headset.

  Quin read his map while walking up the wide, carpeted staircase. He noticed a motion sensor blinking along the floor as he climbed. Harold or somebody kept this place under tight security.

  Upstairs, the white corridor had classic Italian art on its walls, with gallery lighting illuminating each picture. Along the floor molding were more motion sensors. He heard men laughing, silverware clinking against ceramic plates.


  He stepped inside Tuscany. What the room lacked in size it made up for in comfort and ambiance. The men sat at an oak table with a commanding view of the frozen tundra outside. A fireplace crackled and popped on the left, burning birch logs. On the right were bookshelves and an overstuffed red leather couch with brass legs. Breakfast was ready, presented buffet-style on a wheeled cart.

  Big Ben stood at the head of the table. He pulled his sleeve back and looked at his Rolex watch. “Decided to sleep in your first day?” he asked, smiling, upper lip rising above his canine teeth.

  The other men chewed and laughed nervously.

  “Had car trouble on the way in,” Quin said, regretting his breakfast with Lunde. “Sorry, Ben. It won’t happen again.”

  “Relax, we’re having our weekly sales meeting,” Big Ben said. “We would’ve had this breakfast yesterday, but Munroe Pilson showed up, and we all know how that turned out.”

  Several heads nodded, and the men ate their eggs in silence. Nobody commented on the incident. Quin grabbed a bagel and a glass of orange juice before sitting next to Stray Dog. For some reason, Stray Dog sat at the far corner of the table, two empty seats away from the other men. Even James, the other young pup, sat closer to the others.

  “Christopher is the meeting secretary,” Big Ben said. “He records the minutes. Don’t bother taking notes. Now, Quin, please introduce yourself to the group, and we’ll go around the table and introduce ourselves to you.”

  Quin swallowed a piece of dry bagel and wiped his face with the white cloth napkin. He felt his earring dangling and remembered again that he should’ve taken it off.

  Not exactly prepared for a speech, but here goes.

  “Quin Lighthorn. I’m a student at University of Minnesota, studying business administration.”

  “He also studies wolves,” Big Ben said, nodding to the group as if he were a teacher introducing a new student to a class.