by Ward Parker
Affird was getting his hair cut when he happened to glance out the window toward the street. There was that crazy old lady again in the Lincoln Continental the size of the USS Iwo Jima. Her white-haired head just made it above the bottom of the passenger seat window as she stared at him through big, round sunglasses that made her look like an owl. Something about her was familiar. She just sat there and stared until the car behind her honked and she finally moved on.
He’d been seeing her wherever he went. She was obviously tailing him. Was she a geriatric private detective? The grandmother of someone he had put behind bars, or killed? Having been on the job as long as he had, he was bound to accumulate a lot of enemies.
On his way to work the next day, he stopped at his usual coffee franchise. He parked instead of going through the drive-through. The giant white car sat only a few spaces away. He walked as if on the way to the entrance, ducked behind a minivan, then slipped over to the white car.
Its massive V-8 was chugging in idle. The old lady had her neck craned, looking for him to enter the building.
He rapped on her window. She jumped in surprise. He flashed his badge and motioned for her to roll down the window.
“Can I help you, sir?” she asked.
Finally, he recognized her. He had interviewed her with the bunch of other old ladies at the Unger Tract.
She was one of the werewolves from the Seaweed Manor condos.
Josie’s heart, already racing after she was startled by Affird surprising her, beat even faster when his eyes widened in recognition of her.
He remembers me from the night Mary Beth was killed, she thought in horror. Was she in danger?
“I noticed you’ve been following me around, ma’am,” Affird said. “May I ask why?”
“I’m certainly not following you. I’m sorry if I gave that impression. My memory isn’t what it used to be, and sometimes I can’t remember where I’ve been or where I’m going. I end up driving all over town. Costs me a fortune in gas.” She laughed unconvincingly.
“I could swear I saw you staring at me a few times,” Affird said.
“I’m afraid I don’t remember. Which is a shame, because you’re a nice-looking man.”
She couldn’t read his eyes behind his dark shades. He wasn’t smiling, that was for sure.
“It’s almost as if you were playing detective,” he said.
“Why would I do that?”
“If I’m not incorrect, I believe a friend of yours was shot recently. Isn’t that true?”
“Yes. I lost a friend of mine.”
“Now, you wouldn’t be following me around because of her, would you?”
“No. Why would I do that?”
“Perhaps you want to keep tabs on me to make sure I’m doing my job and investigating the shooting. Is that what this is?”
“No, no. I’m sure you’re good at your job.”
“I should point out that the shooting took place outside of the Jellyfish Beach city limits, therefore it’s under the jurisdiction of the county sheriff’s office. They’re the ones doing the investigation, ma’am. I was there that night only to help them out.”
“Good to know, sir,” Josephine said, anxious for this conversation to end. “Thank you for helping out.”
“Now, the possibility just struck me, strange as it may sound, that you might be following me because you consider me a suspect in the killing. Could that be?”
Josie’s stomach plunged. “Of course not, officer. I mean, detective.”
“I’m glad to hear you don’t believe that. Normally, people of your generation have a positive opinion of law enforcement. It’s good to know you’re one of them.”
“I’m always so grateful for your service, sir.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He looked at his watch. “I’m late for work. You have a nice day.”
He gave her a smile about as warm as a shark’s and walked into the coffee shop. Josie backed The Boat out of its parking spot and drove away before Affird returned.
That was the end of tailing him. At least she had a rough idea of his daily routes so she could ambush him.
Did she have the will to do so?
The problem with being a werewolf was her dual nature. In wolf form, she wouldn’t hesitate to rip the man’s throat out. But most of the time, she was an eighty-seven-year-old human who cringed at the thought of murder.
The fact was, most werewolves weren’t born that way. They were humans who were bitten by werewolves and became infected with the lycanthropy virus. The virus enabled them to shift, but it didn’t remake the person they were. Being able to shift, and experiencing the world as a wolf, transformed your outlook and personality to some extent—especially if you were infected at a young age. But it didn’t fundamentally change who you were. It didn’t put evil into your heart. Though if evil was already there, it was amplified.
In Josie’s heart, there was no evil. In times like this, she wished there was. Because she was losing her determination to kill Affird.
She drove The Boat to a big box store. These places often gave her the urge to kill, so maybe she could transfer it to Affird. But the store wasn’t crowded and there were few obnoxious customers. She bought a tub of ice cream on sale and drove back to her condo.
In the mornings, Seaweed Manor was usually fairly quiet. The heavy partiers, of whom there were many, were still sleeping off their hangovers. As she approached the garage, she waved to some friends at the pool and to another walking toward the beach. Then, it was up the elevator to the fifth floor and to her two-bedroom facing the beach.
As soon as she had gone inside and closed the door, a gun pushed against her head.
“When you tail someone, they’re not supposed to know you’re doing it.” It was Affird’s voice.
“How did you get in here?” Josie asked.
“The security in the complex is a joke. And I’ve dealt with enough burglars over the years to know how to pick locks pretty well.”
“Are you going to kill me?” Josie asked, trying to sound brave.
“That remains to be seen.” He pushed the gun more firmly into her scalp. “Why have you been following me?”
“Because you killed Mary Beth.”
“Your friend at the Unger Tract? I didn’t kill her.”
“And you killed Teresa, too.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Oh, sure, you’re going to kill me, but I’m supposed to believe you didn’t kill her?”
“I don’t care what you believe,” he said, close to losing his temper. “Have you turned into a vigilante? Were you following me because you planned to kill me?”
“You’re here to kill me for my believing you killed my friend, and now you’re accusing me of wanting to kill you? I’m getting confused here. Who’s trying to kill who?”
“Whom. ‘Who’s trying to kill whom?’”
“I was a middle-school principal. I know the proper use of whom.”
“I hated my middle-school principal,” he said. Now he was truly angry. “I should kill you just for that.”
“Can I sit down now?” Josie asked. “My knees are hurting me.”
Affird blew out air in exasperation, picked her up, and dropped her on the living room couch.
“How many werewolves live here?” he asked.
“Werewolves? What are you talking about?”
“Don’t give me that bull. I know about you and your friends. How many other werewolves live here?”
“Very few,” she lied. “You’re killing them off. You killed Chainsaw, too.”
“That low-life drug dealer? Yes. Him I did kill. He was going for my gun.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“How many times do I have to remind you I don’t care what you believe?”
They were at an impasse, Josie realized. They both knew each other’s secret: Affird knew that Josie was a werewolf, and she knew that Affird murdered werewolves. Af
fird could very well decide to kill her right now. She could tell he wanted to. He wore his service weapon in a belt holster, but it was a second piece that he was threatening her with. It was probably loaded with the silver bullets.
The one thing that could save her was that it would look very bad for Affird to kill a little old lady in her condo with no one to back up a story that it was self-defense.
Affird was looking at her china cabinet. He walked over to it and opened the drawer that held her expensive silver cutlery.
She swallowed hard. Yes, he could kill her and make it appear as if a burglar had done it.
A burglar who used silver bullets?
Affird’s second gun was probably a throwaway weapon, a stolen gun with the serial number filed off, the kind crooked cops put in the dead hands of the suspects they shouldn’t have shot. That’s what he would use to make it appear a burglar shot her.
But that gun would be of no use against a werewolf, only one that was in human form.
On the other hand, if he wanted to defend himself against a werewolf—or to execute one extrajudicially—the gun would be loaded with silver bullets. Silver slugs in Josie’s body would look really odd to a medical examiner.
She doubted his service weapon held silver bullets. Using unauthorized ammunition would surely get him in trouble. Or so she hoped.
The reason she was weighing these possibilities was that she was deciding whether to shift right then and there. Assuming that the gun in his hand was loaded with regular ammunition, shifting to wolf form was the only way to avoid dying from those bullets. And then she could kill him, too. Wasn’t killing him her mission?
But, then again, she had just put new floors in her condo and had the walls painted. The thought of all the blood on the new hardwood laminate was too horrifying to consider.
“What do you have against us, detective?”
“Against whom? Note my proper use of the pronoun.”
“Against supernaturals. It’s not as if I decided to become a werewolf. I was bitten by one and became infected by the virus. I was a victim.”
“You’re a monster,” he said with unexpected ferocity. “I’ve seen people who were killed by werewolves and what was done to their bodies. Unbelievably savage. Sure, some egghead medical examiner always determines the deaths were caused by a pack of dogs or a wild animal somehow in the city. I saw one of those supposed wild animals transform back into human form. The woman that monster killed was the true victim. Not the monster. Monsters like that don’t deserve to exist.”
“There are good werewolves and bad ones, just like people,” Josie said. “Think of all the horrible murders committed by people. Does that make you hate all people and want to eliminate them? I’ll have you know that I’ve never killed a human being. The blood of small animals is all I have on my hands. Are you going to tell me that all the people who hunt for sport are evil, too?”
“Of course not. And yes, serial killers and the like are monsters. But in the metaphorical sense. Werewolves are literally monsters, perversions of nature. Abominations in God’s eyes. You are children of Satan!”
Josie felt she had been slapped in the face.
“You’d better tell Reverend Johnson that. He sees me every Sunday at First Episcopal.”
Affird started pacing back and forth across the living room.
“I don’t care what you do to pretend you’re a normal human,” he said. “I don’t care about all your trappings of a prim and proper lady in your beachfront retirement community. I know that you’re evil and I don’t want you in my town.”
“Why don’t you make this public knowledge? Let the citizens decide if they want us or not?”
“Because they won’t understand. They’ll break into mass panic and they’ll blame the police for not protecting them.”
“Or they just might decide they don’t care if we live here,” Josie said. “That’s what scares you the most, isn’t it?”
Affird stopped pacing and looked at Josie with unbridled anger. His face was dark purple. Josie was afraid he’d get an aneurysm or something.
He pointed his throwaway piece at her, hesitated, glanced at his service weapon in its holster, then back at her. He appeared lost in frustration and indecision.
Josie had a bad feeling about this. Was the throwaway piece loaded with silver bullets after all? She had to make a run for it. As soon as Affird’s eyes darted away from her, she sprinted toward the front door as fast as her eighty-seven-year-old legs could take her. Her hand touched the doorknob.
And Affird grabbed her in a bear hug, lifting her off her feet. He carried her across the living room. She squirmed and tried to escape, but he held her so tightly she thought her bones would snap.
He reached the sliding-glass door to the balcony, slung her over his shoulder, and used his free hand to open the door. He moved onto the balcony.
Josie’s eyes were on the interior of her condo as Affird pushed her off his shoulder. She sailed backwards through the air.
And over the balcony railing. His satisfied face looked at her as she began her five-story plunge.
20
Men Are the Problem
Falling backwards off her balcony, Josie was lucky. Panic didn’t overwhelm her right away. Despair and helplessness didn’t win. Somehow, the fierce desire to extend her eighty-seven-year run on this earth won out. Some people would fall frozen in resignation of their doom. Others would claw at the air like Wile E. Coyote, as if that would keep them aloft.
Josie did a version of the latter. She instantly forced herself into shifting mode. Transforming into a wolf normally took from just under a minute to five minutes or more. But Josie had to do it in a few seconds.
As she shifted, she turned her body to face the ground that rushed toward her way too fast. The green grass between the ground-floor condos’ patios and the concrete of the pool deck. The grass where she would be smashed to death right about —
Suddenly, a wolf with preternatural strength, she flexed her four legs and absorbed the impact, springing slightly upward in the transference of force. Still, her chest and stomach had hit the ground, slightly knocking the wind out of her. Her four legs hurt. But she had survived with nothing broken.
She sprang sideways, almost before the shot rang out above her. A clump of sod exploded inches from her shoulder. She knew what she had to do.
She raced toward her building and leaped to the second-floor balcony. Using her werewolf strength and the opposable thumbs of her hand-paw hybrids, she jumped up and pulled herself onto the third-floor balcony. She pressed her body against the building as she climbed to give Affird less of a target. Now she was on the fourth floor.
The sliding-glass door was open. A werewolf in his early sixties came out onto the balcony in human form with a watering can in his hand. It was Tom Furman.
“Josie, is that you?” He asked. “Did you hear a gunshot? Do we have criminals in our community?”
She growled in the affirmative and leaped to grab the risers of the railing on her own balcony above. This time, it was on the side of the balcony where it met the wall of the building. She had to be careful and quiet to avoid being shot point-blank in the head when she climbed up.
She pulled herself up just enough for a peek over the concrete slab. No shoes were visible. She lowered herself back down to Tom’s balcony.
Mangling human speech with her wolf-like mouth, she got Tom’s permission to pass through his condo. Once in the hallway, she avoided the elevators (both for tactical reasons and because werewolves in wolf form can’t stand the claustrophobia), and ran up the stairwell.
She prepared to use her strength to bust through her condo door, but it was slightly ajar. She sniffed at the crack. Affird’s scent was weak and faded. She slipped inside the door to find her condo empty. Affird had fled.
Well, first things first. Josie’s outfit, with the matching khaki shorts and top that she had thought perfect for her surveillance work, lay
on the ground near where she had landed. It had been split apart when she shifted, but she couldn’t leave it there in the grass. People would know it was hers. So she had to shift back to human form, vacuum the shed fur, and run downstairs to retrieve her clothes.
As she gathered the torn outfit from the grass, Doreen from the Werewolf Women’s Club approached her.
“Josie, are you all right? I saw what happened. I was doing my laps in the pool.”
“What exactly did you see?”
“I heard you scream, so I looked up—”
“I didn’t scream.”
“You did. I looked up and saw you falling from your balcony, shifting just in time, and landing on all fours. Very impressive! And then I saw the detective shoot at you. I wasn’t sure if I should call the police or not.”
“Not just yet,” Josie said. “Let me think about it. Detective Affird tried to kill me because I’m a werewolf. And because I know he killed our ladies. So it’s complicated.”
While Josie rode the elevator upstairs, she weighed her options. She had to kill Affird now, not just out of vengeance but because he would kill her as soon as he got the chance. Unfortunately, now it would be hard to catch him by surprise. Where could she ambush him? How could she make sure there were no witnesses?
Maybe Doreen was right. She should report Affird and get him in trouble for using his firearm recklessly. With luck, that would keep him away.
She called Doreen. “It’s Josie. Yes, do call the police. Tell them exactly what you saw. Except the part about me being thrown off the balcony. I could never explain why I wasn’t killed or injured.”
Then Josie called the police herself and asked to make a complaint. She explained that Affird had broken into her condo. He was physically abusive when questioning her. She was afraid for her safety, left the condo, and then was almost killed when he fired a shot at her in a public area. She knew there was at least one witness and possibly more. She emphasized her advanced age and clean record.
Not long afterwards, a male police officer came by, and she repeated her story, playing the role of a sweet grandmother. She even gave him lemonade and cookies.