by Lee Mae
She appreciated Mike’s acceptance. Her rocket-fueled promotion to detective had sent waves of discord through the force. She was viewed as incompetent by some or worse, thought of as someone’s girlfriend, using whatever means she had to in order to advance through the ranks, the assumption being that she’d earned her badge on her back.
The endless digs and jabs at her ability to do her job bothered her, but she kept her head down, deciding her work could speak for itself. But the innuendos and rumors, and sometimes the comments, whispered behind her back, but just loud enough for her to hear, had her gritting her teeth and clenching her fists. All that got under her skin in a way that surprised her. She’d worked hard to get to where she was and to have it reduced to the assumption she’d traded sex for a title disgusted and infuriated her.
But she loved her job, and as much as she wanted to turn around and face the guys talking behind her back, she knew she’d just come off as defensive or bitchy and it would only make things worse. So, she bit her tongue, held back her words, and did her job.
She pulled out onto John Nolen Drive, merged with the traffic headed downtown, and promptly came to a stop. Madison was built on an isthmus, a narrow stretch of land between two lakes. She was pretty sure the guys who designed the city never envisioned anything like morning traffic in downtown Madison on a Monday.
Traffic inched forward and she cut left, heading north on Broom, across the isthmus toward the precinct house. She navigated the Rubik’s cube of one-way streets that were the bedevilment of commuters who worked anywhere close to downtown. As the state’s capital, the Capitol building dominated the narrowest point of the isthmus. The streets were arranged in alternating directions surrounding the square. Further complicating traffic patterns were the angled streets that radiated out from the corners of the square, bisecting the one-ways at odd angles. And on the western side, the pedestrian-only State Street ran down from the Capitol to the university, adding another layer of complications for commuters.
Serena pulled into the lot across from the precinct house and darted across Gilman Street, hurrying through the brick plaza in front of the building. The precinct was located on the north side of the isthmus, on the shores of Lake Mendota, the much larger sister to Lake Monona. The wind swept across the lake, and even in the relative shelter of the building it swirled erratically, catching her in its wintry grip. She ducked her head and pushed open the glass doors.
Once inside, she stopped. The jolt of anticipation and excitement she’d experienced the first time she’d walked through these doors as a detective over six months ago still ran through her. She wondered how long it would last until the newness wore off.
There was a crowd waiting for the elevators so she ducked into the stairwell, jogging up to the third floor, working to get the blood flowing to her cold feet again. She arrived on her floor a little breathless but warmer.
The door to the office she shared with Mike was open, the lights already on when she stepped inside. Mike was at his desk, his hands wrapped around a giant mug of coffee. She pulled the hat from her head, her hair crackling with static, strands that had escaped her ponytail sticking to her face. She pushed them back impatiently, wishing again for the hundredth time she had the nerve to cut it all off. But it added a layer of warmth beneath her hat so she kept it long.
“How is it that you always manage to get back here before me?” Serena peeled off her gloves, hanging her jacket on the back of the door.
Mike shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess. Or good driving.” He smiled at her, that slow lazy smile he had, blowing steam off his coffee.
“I suppose you can find your way, blindfolded, out of the woods in the dark of night without a compass?” She poured herself a cup of coffee. Mike had brought a coffee pot from home. They split the cost of better-than-average coffee and guarded the stash as if it were gold. It was one of the things they discovered they shared, along with a love for reading good books and watching bad horror movies. She’d been to Mike’s house a couple of times, having dinner with him and his wife Robin, and then settling down with Mike to watch a B-grade horror flick. Robin just shook her head at them.
“I thought Mike was the only one who laughed through horror movies. Now you. I guess you two do make a good pair.”
Now Mike laughed at Serena. “A compass wouldn’t do me much good if I was blindfolded, would it? But yeah, I’ve gotten myself home after dark a few times.”
Serena sat at her desk, sipping her coffee. Mike slid a stack of photos across to her.
“Here, these came in: lots of footprints, the crows, and the dog.”
She shuffled through the photos, glancing at each one briefly. The images showed a welter of boot tracks, some old, some newer. None appeared fresh. There were shots of scratches in the snow, the hectic tracks of crows, the opportunistic scavengers who fed on almost anything they could find in the winter, which apparently now included human remains.
Finally, she found the photos of the dog tracks. The prints were huge, clearly the size of a Great Dane or larger. She squinted at the photos. Something was off. No dog track had ever looked like this. It might have been distorted by the mind and snow, but still, something looked wrong, out of place.
“Mike, who’s that guy that you know at the university? In the Zoology Department?” She held up the photo.
“The guy Robin introduced me to at her Christmas party last year? I think his name is Beckley.”
“I’d like to have him take a look at this, tell me what kind of dog he thinks this is from.”
“You think a dog did this?” Mike flipped through the battered Rolodex sitting next to his desk phone. He was the only person she knew who still scribbled names and numbers on little cards and methodically stuck them into the Rolodex. He’d complained recently that those little cards were becoming harder to find, but he refused to give up his beloved method of organization.
Serena shook her head. “I’m really not sure. Too soon to tell without hearing from the ME. But I’d like to know what this is just the same.” She looked up at Mike. “You ever see a wolf before, Mike? In the wild, I mean?”
“No, not back home. We don’t have them anymore, really. Well, we had one, last year or so, but some guy shot it. Thought it was a coyote or something.” Mike cleared his throat. “Thing was huge; looked more like someone’s German Shepherd. Far cry from a coyote, that’s for sure.”
She spread the photos out on her desk while Mike made the call. She looked at each one carefully, lost in thought, trying to construct a three-dimensional image in her mind from the flat photographs. Mike’s voice faded into the background. Something more than the unusual dog prints were wrong. She pulled out the shots of the body, spreading them out on her desk as well.
The man was completely naked. The snow around his body revealed footprints, but there were no signs of a struggle. Yet he was alive when his throat was torn out; only a beating heart could have made the arcs and sprays of arterial blood on the snow. And none of the boot tracks in the snow disturbed the blood splatters. They were all old prints, there before he was.
The only print that did appear to be fresh was the dog track. Serena arranged the photos until she had a sequence of just the dog prints. They came from the south, walked directly to the body, made a circle, and then walked back, the southbound track almost covering the tracks coming in. It was almost as if it came to look at the body.
“Looks like a wolf track.”
5
Serena’s head jerked up. Mike was gone and there was a man standing beside her desk, looking down at the photos. Serena quickly slid them together, turning them face down on her desk. She rose, meeting the man’s eyes. She blinked and immediately felt at a disadvantage, like prey held in the gaze of a predator. It unnerved her.
“Can I help you?” She kept her voice neutral, her posture relaxed. He’d startled her but she didn’t need him to know that.
“No, but I think I can help you.” The man he
ld out his hand and Serena glanced down, accepting it reluctantly. His grip was strong and firm, his hand warm as it engulfed hers. With a quick shake of her hand, he released it.
“I’m Wes Callahan.” His voice was low, confident, his mouth curved into a cocky grin. He was too confident, too certain of his reception. A prickle of apprehension ran up her neck.
“I’m Detective Daniels, Mr. Callahan. Have a seat.” She indicated the chair next to her desk and waited until he sat down before taking her chair.
“Sorry if I caught you off guard. The door was open.” Wes gestured behind him toward the open door.
“That’s fine. What is it you think you can help us with?” She folded her hands across the back of the photos and wondered just how much he’d seen.
“You found a body this morning, early, out on Monona.” He said that in a tone that gave Serena the impression it wasn’t a question but that he was stating a fact. He was, but how he knew that fact bothered her.
“And how did you come by this information?” She wondered if it was already on the early news, then decided probably it was. There’d have to be some kind of statement made, or there’d be panic from the public.
“I have contacts. But more importantly, I think we’re hunting the same killer.”
“Really? Are you a police officer, Mr. Callahan?”
“Please, call me Wes. And no, not anymore. I was, back in Wichita, but that was years ago. Now I’m an independent tracker.”
“A tracker? Of killers?” He was either a vigilante on a mission or a bona fide crazy person. She wasn’t sure yet. Wes leaned forward, tapping the photos beneath her hands. Serena resisted the urge to pull her hands away. As uncomfortable as he made her, there was an aura about him that drew her in, a dark magnetism. She became aware that her breathing was shallow and she straightened, drawing a deep breath.
“I’ve seen this before.” His voice dropped lower, his eyes locked with hers. But this time Serena refused to blink.
“You’ve seen what before?”
“This type of body dump, in the open, the killing bloody and brutal.”
“Again, Mr. Callahan, how exactly do you think you can help us?”
“I’m a tracker…”
Serena looked up at the thud of Mike’s boots as he came back into their office. He raised an eyebrow at her, coming around to stand next to her. She inclined her head toward Wes, eyes on Mike.
“Mike, this is Wes Callahan. He’s come to offer his assistance.”
“That so?” Mike’s impassive face remained unchanged, but the skepticism was thick in his voice. He pulled up a chair next to Serena, facing Wes. “And what kind of assistance might that be?”
“As I was explaining to Detective Daniels, I’m a tracker. And I’ve seen this before, several times actually.”
“And what exactly do ya’ll track, Mr. Callahan?” Mike settled back into his chair, putting on the good ole Southern boy charm. Serena suppressed a smile. Mike had played country rube to her big city detective more than once, always to their advantage.
“I track shifters.” Wes’s eyes stayed on Serena and she refused to look away. She suddenly had the sensation of being back on the ice on the lake, treading carefully, wary of the thin sheet of glass that lay beneath her feet.
“Shifters? Or did you mean to say drifters? As in vagrants or homeless men?”
“No, shifters. Wolf shifters, actually. And I believe that’s what did this to your victim.” He tapped the photos again with his finger.
“A shifter? As in a man who changes into a wolf?” Serena couldn’t hide the disbelief that coated her words.
“You sound skeptical.”
“I sound skeptical because sir…we don’t have werewolves in Wisconsin.”
“I said shifter, not werewolf.”
Wes’s serious demeanor remained unchanged, his eyes never leaving hers. Serena wondered just how deeply this guy held on to his wild notions of werewolves, or wolf men or…shifters.
“And there’s a difference?”
“To a professional, yes, a very big difference. Werewolves are compelled to change at the full moon, and are not able to shift otherwise. Shifters can, and do, change at will.”
“So, you’re telling me our victim was killed by a shifter? By a man who can, at will, transform himself into a wolf?”
Wes leaned back in his chair and simply nodded. Serena was struck by his relaxed posture and suddenly realized that he was serious. Whoever he was, he certainly had confidence in what he was saying. Even if it did sound absolutely crazy.
“I’ve been tracking a shifter for a few months now. I’ve followed him north from Kansas, up through the Dakotas, and then through Minnesota before finally coming here. I lose him as soon as I get close though. He’s cagey, easily spooked.”
“Mr. Callahan, how do you know what we may have found was killed by your… shifter?”
“Everything fits. Violent death, body seems as though it was dropped from out of nowhere. No signs of struggle. In your case, just a body in the middle of a frozen lake.”
Serena sensed Mike shift uneasily in his chair. She knew damned well even if the news crews had gotten the story, none of what Wes said would have been made public.
“Mr. Callahan, do you have any identification? Something that backs up your tracker status?”
Wes gave her a grin as he reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a battered leather cardholder and held it out to her.
“Feel free to contact anyone who’s listed. You’ll find my Chief from Wichita and a few police departments I’ve worked with along the way.”
Serena took the holder, scanning the names. The Kansas name wasn’t one she knew, but there were a few names from towns further north in Wisconsin, Wausau, and Stevens Point, and she made notes of all the names and numbers. She handed the holder back to him.
“Is there any professional organization for what you do, Mr. Callahan?”
His deep chuckle startled her. “No, ma’am. We’re not a very organized bunch. There are a few of us, but we mostly work alone. As you can imagine, this isn’t a highly advertised profession.”
“I would imagine not.”
Wes’s eyes were on her again, and she resisted the urge to look away. It wasn’t very often she felt intimidated by anyone, suspects or killers, or even other police officers. She could face a news crew or a press conference and not bat an eye. But Wes Callahan had set off so many different and conflicting signals in her brain that she was confused. Maybe it was the look of a hunter stalking prey, but whatever it was, his penetrating gaze unnerved her.
This time when he leaned forward, his hand rested on hers.
“Detective Daniels, there are very few people who’ve actually seen either a werewolf or a shifter, although there have been plenty of people killed by them. I’m just trying to keep that from continuing.” Although Mike was right there in that moment, Serena felt like she and Wes Callahan were the only two people in the room. His focus on her was intense and unrelenting. When he pulled his hand away, she could still feel the heat from his skin on hers.
Serena wiped her hands on her jeans, suddenly too hot, the room too stuffy, Wes sitting too close. She abruptly pushed her chair back, jarring the desk, coffee spilling onto the blotter. Mike stood hastily.
But Wes rose slowly, still watching Serena.
“One last thing.” Callahan reached into his pocket and both Serena and Mike tensed. When he opened his palm, it held a single bullet. He set it on the desk, almost reverentially. Serena looked down at it, the bullet gleaming dully in the fluorescent light.
“Silver. It’s the only thing that’ll kill a shifter. A silver knife works, even a letter opener, provided it’s genuine silver.”
Serena heard Mike suppress what might have been a laugh with a fit of coughing. But Callahan held her eyes, and she saw in them he was serious, deadly serious.
She held out her hand and hoped to hell no one saw that it was trembli
ng. He held her gaze for a beat and then took her hand.
“Thanks for stopping by, Mr. Callahan. It’s been an…interesting conversation.”
“Thanks for hearing me out. I’ll be looking forward to your call.” He nodded briefly at Mike before he turned and walked out of the office.
6
Serena sank back into her chair, watching the door even after he was out of sight. She thought she could hear the sound of his boots in the hall but knew it was just her imagination. It seemed something vital was missing, something Wes Callahan had taken with him when he left the room. She picked up the bullet, running her fingers over the smooth finish.
“So, what do you think that was about?”
Mike was back in his chair across from her. She glanced up, her brows furrowed, and dropped the bullet back onto her desk.
“I have no frigging clue what that was about.”
“Do you believe that stuff about wolves or shifters, or whatever the hell they’re called?”
She regarded Mike for a minute. “You ever heard of the Beast of Bray Road? Down by Elkhorn? People claim to have seen what they described as a werewolf like…thing. There have been reports east of here, out toward Watertown, of a pack of wild dogs, big wild dogs, attacking and mutilating cattle. There’s a whole lot of unexplained shit that happens. But hearing reports of a shifter or a werewolf in some remote section of desolate woods is far different from hearing we have one taking up residence in downtown Madison.”
Mike nodded. “We had kindly the same back home.”
Serena smiled. He was still in his Kentucky mode of speaking, the odd word usage popping up every now and then. He’d finally stopped adding dear and honey to the end of every sentence after someone had complained about it to the Lieutenant. Serena knew he’d worked hard to lose the regional accent when he’d moved north. The only time it was really present these days was when he was home with his wife Robin, or now, when he’d played it up on purpose, or when his temper got the best of him, which wasn’t often.