Victoria Nelson - Blood Trail Part 13

On the other hand, the next likeliest suspect was a police officer and Vicki didn't want to believe that Barry Wu was responsible. She glanced down the table at Colin who, while larger than his uncle and father, was still a small, wiry man and probably wouldn't have made the force under the old size requirements. He looked like someone had a knife in his heart and was slowly twisting the blade. He hadn't said two words since he'd sat down.

Did she think it was old man Biehn? No. Nor did she want to think it was Colin's partner. Nor could shecompletely rule either of them out, not until the murderer was found. A great many people had access to the woods, however, and in spite of the statistics, the most obvious suspects didn't always turn out to be guilty.

She turned back to Rose, waiting predator patient for an answer.

"Until I get more information, I have to suspect everyone, Rose, even Mr. Kleinbein. This is too important not to."

Having cleared the table of anything remotely like food, the wer were rising and going their separate ways. Donald had already changed, padded out to the porch, and collapsed in a dark triangle of shade.

Shadow, with permission from his mother, had taken a bone into a corner and, holding it between his front paws, was chewing it into submission.

Vicki stood as Colin did, but he turned and headedout of the kitchen without acknowledging her in any way.

"Colin!" Even Vicki stiffened at the command in Stuart's voice and Colin stopped dead, shoulders hunched. "Vicki wants to talk to you."

Slowly, Colin turned, canines gleaming.

"Colin. ..." The name was a growl, low and menacing.

The younger wer hesitated for a moment, then his shoulders dropped and a curt motion of his head indicated Vicki should follow him.

It was far from gracious, but it would have to do. She fell into step behind him as he started up the stairs.

"It's too hot to walk outside, so we'll talk in my room," he said without turning. "Then the kids won't interrupt."Vicki wasn't so sure of that, given the wer sense of privacy but, if it made Colin more comfortable, they could talk on the roof for all she cared.

His room was one of three in the addition built on over the woodshed and the door next to his was the first closed door Vicki had seen in the house.

"Henry," Colin said by way of explanation as they pa.s.sed. "He bolts it from the inside."

"It's not a bedroom. ..."

"No. It's a storage closet. But it doesn't have a window, and if we shuffle stuff around there's room for a cot."

Vicki brushed her palm over the dark wood and wondered if Henry could sense her in the hallway.

Wondered what it was like, lying there in the dark.

"Ihaven't seen the sun in over four hundred years. "

She sighed and entered Colin's room. He threw himself down on the bed, fingers laced behind his head, watching her through narrowed eyes. Despite the outwardly relaxed position, every muscle in his body hummed with tension, ready for fight or flight. Vicki wasn't sure which, nor did she want to find out.

"I used to get the laundry to do mine, too," she told him, nodding at the half dozen clean uniform s.h.i.+rts hanging on the closet door, still in their plastic bags. Pus.h.i.+ng a pair of sweatpants off a wooden chair, she sat down. "I had better things to do with my time than iron."

"So," she leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees, "do you think your partner did it?" Colin's eyes narrowed further and his lips drew back but before he could move she added matter-of-factly, "Or do you want to help me prove he didn't?"Slowly, his eyes never leaving her face, Colin sat up. Vicki accepted his puzzled scrutiny with her blandest expression and waited. The next line was his. "You don't think Barry did it," he said at last.

"I didn't say that." She rested her chin on her folded hands. "But I don'twant to believe he did it and you're the best person to prove he didn't. For Chrissakes, Colin, start thinking like a cop, not a ... a sheepdog." He flinched. "Did he have the opportunity?"

For a moment she wasn't sure he was going to answer her, then he mirrored her position on the edge of the bed and sighed. "Yeah. We were working days both times it happened. He knows the farm and he knows the conservation area. We got off at eleven last night and he could have easily come out here after s.h.i.+ft and made those tracks."

"Okay, that's one against, and we know he has the skill. ..."

"He's going to the next Olympics, he's that good. But if he's casting silver bullets I couldn't find any evidence of it and, believe me, I looked."

"Does he have a motive?"

Colin shook his head. "How should I know? If he's doing it, maybe he's crazy."

"Is he?"

"Is he what?"

"Crazy? You spend eight hours a day with the man. If he's crazy, you should have noticed something."

She rolled her eyes at his bewildered expression and used her voice like a club. "Think, d.a.m.n it! Use your training!"

Colin's ears went back and his breathing sped up but he held himself in check and Vicki could actually see him thinking about it. She was impressed by his control. If a stranger had used that tone on her, she'd have probably done something stupid.

After a moment, he frowned. "I wouldn't swear to this in court," he said slowly, "but I'd bet my life on his sanity."

"You are betting your life on his sanity," Vicki pointed out dryly, "every time you walk out of the station with him. Now we've settled that, why don't we concentrate on proving hedidn't do it."

"But. ..."

"But what?" Vicki snapped, getting a little tired of Colin's att.i.tude. She recognized that he was in a terrible position, torn between his family and his partner, but that was no reason to shut off his brain. "Just tell me about the man."

"We, uh, we were at the Police College together." He ran his hands through his hair, the cropped cut accentuating the point of both chin and ears. "I wouldn't even be a cop if it wasn't for Barry, and I guess he wouldn't be one if it wasn't for me. He was the only 'visible ethnic minority' cadet there and I was, well, what I am. We ended up together to survive. When we graduated, we managed to stay together - well, mostly, it's not like we're mated or anything. ..."

Vicki wasn't surprised by Barry's philosophical reaction to his partner's actual race. In the "us against them" att.i.tude that the job forced police officers to develop, finding out that one of "us" was a werewolf could be dealt with, at least on an individual basis.Can I depend on my partner to back me up ? was the crucial question, not,Does my partner bay at the moon? And now that she thought about it, Vicki had known a number of cops who bayed at the moon.

"... and the night I got shot. ..."

"Wait a minute, you what?"

Colin shrugged it off."We surprised a couple of punks during a holdup. They came out shooting. I took aslug in the leg. It was nothing."

"Wrong. Very wrong." Vicki grinned. "Barry was there?"

"Course he was."

"He saw you bleed?"

"Yeah."

"You probably talked later about dying, about how you thought you were going to be killed?"

"Yeah, but. ..."

"Why would Barry shoot at the wer with silver bullets - expensive rounds that he'd have to make himself, risking discovery - when he knows that good old lead will do the job?"

"To throw us off his trail?"

"Colin!" Vicki threw her hands up. "That would take a crazy person and you've already told me Barry is sane. Trust your instincts. At least when you've got enough facts to back them up."

Colin opened his mouth, closed it, and then shuddered as if a great weight had been lifted off of him. He leapt to his feet, threw back his head, and howled.

Vicki, who had pretty much forgotten that he was naked, found herself suddenly made very aware of it.

The wer might react s.e.xually to scent and therefore not react at all to humans, but humans had a visually based libido and Vicki's had just belted her in the crotch.Oh, lord, why me?she thought as huge black paws came down on her shoulders and a large pink tongue swept vigorously across her face.

After Colin had galloped off to confront his pack leader - he needed Stuart's permission to finally speak to Barry about what had been going on - Vicki spent the early part of the afternoon on the phone, confirming that the game warden had, indeed, been up north since the beginning of August and had, in fact, been there on the two nights of the murders, his location supported by a bar full of witnesses. That done, and his name crossed off her list, she changed her clothes and had Rose and Peter drive her into London.

Storm spent the entire trip with his head out the window, mouth open, eyes slitted against the wind, ears flat against his skull.

The members.h.i.+p lists of both bird-watching clubs were relatively easy to get. She merely showed the presidents of each her identification and told them she'd been hired to find a distant relative of a very rich man. "All I have to go on is that they once lived in the London area and enjoyed bird-watching. There's a great deal of money involved if I find them."

"But are you looking for a man or a woman ?"

"I don't know," Vicki looked peeved.

"He's lost almost all his marbles and that's all he can remember. Oh, yes, he mumbled something about this relative being a marksman."

Neither president rose to the bait. If the killer was one of the birders, he or she hadn't mentioned his or her interest in firearms to the executive of either club. "You don't have a third cousin named Anthony Carmaletti, do you?" Vicki crossed her fingers as she asked. If either of them did have a third cousin named Anthony Carmaletti it was going to blow her rich, dying relative story right out of the water.

She received one definite no with a twenty minute lecture on genealogy, one "I'll ask my mother, can you get back to me tomorrow?" from an octogenarian, and both lists.And Celluci says I'm a lousy liar. Ha."Now what?" Rose asked as she got back into the car after the second stop.

"Now, I need the members.h.i.+p list of the photography club, but I doubt the YMCA will just hand it over, and I need the OPP list of registered firearms, which should be a little easier to get ..." Cops tended to cooperate with their own. "... but right at the moment, I need to talk to Dr. Dixon."

First impressions said Dr. Dixon could not have been the killer. He was a frail old man who wouldn't have made it to the tree, let alone climbed it carrying a high-powered rifle and scope.

They had a short but pleasant visit. Dr. Dixon told Vicki embarra.s.sing stories about Rose and Peter when they were children, which the twins paid no attention to as they were busy in the next room decimating his record collection.

"Opera," the doctor explained when Vicki wondered what was going on. "Every wer I've ever met is crazy about it."

"Every wer?" Vicki asked.

"Every werI've met," he reiterated. "Stuart's old pack in Vermont prefers Italian, but they're close enough to civilization they can afford to be picky. Most of the rest, at least in Canada, particularly the pack just by Algonquin Park and the lot up by Mooseane, are glued to the CBC Sunday afternoons."

"How many packs are there?"

"Well, I just mentioned four, and there's at least two up in the Yukon, one in northern Manitoba. ..." He frowned. "How the h.e.l.l should I know? Enough for genetic diversity. Although at some point they seem to have inbred for opera. Can't get enough. I lend this lot records and," he raised his voice, "occasionally they bring them back."

"Next time, Dr. Dixon," Peter called. "We promise."

"Sure you will," he muttered. "If that d.a.m.ned pup's been chewing on them again I'll. ..."

"Scratch him behind the ears and tell him he's adorable," Rose finished, coming into the room with a half dozen alb.u.ms under her arm, "just like you always do."

While they were leaving, Vicki paused on the front step and watched Storm race across the lawn after a b.u.t.terfly.

"What happens when you die?" she asked the doctor.

He snorted. "I rot. Why?"

"I mean, what happens to them? They won't stop needing a doctor just because you're gone."

"When the time is right, I'll tell the young doctor who took over my practice." He laughed suddenly. "She grew up not knowing if she wanted to be a vet or a GP. The wer should be right up her alley."

"Don't wait too long," Vicki warned.

"Don't stick that investigating nose of yours in where it doesn't belong," Dr. Dixon shot back. "I've known the Heerkens family for years, longer than you've been alive. I have no intention of dropping dead and leaving them to face the world alone."

"Theywon't be alone."

He grinned at her defensive tone, but his voice was soft as he said, "No, I don't suppose they will be."

Jennifer and Marie didn't bother coming in for dinner."They shared a rabbit about an hour ago," Nadine explained, smiling fondly, sadly, out the window at them. They were curled so tightly around each other that it was difficult to see where one fur-form ended and the other began.

Colin had long since left for work so only the seven of them sat down at the table. Daniel did his best to make up for the missing three.

After dinner, Vicki worked on her notes - impressions of Carl Biehn, Frederick Kleinbein, the birders, the doctor, the new set of tracks - and then she just sat, attempting to put the day and the day's discoveries in order. Order kept escaping her, she had a number of bits and pieces but nothing that definitely fit into the pattern. The opera in the background wasn't a lot of help and the weird harmonics added by her hosts could only be called distracting.

Actually, Vicki could think of a number of other things to call them, but she went to the pond to watch Shadow hunt frogs instead. Under the circ.u.mstances, it seemed safer - not only for Shadow but for herself as well.

"Don't let him eat too many," Nadine called over the music as they left, "or he'll make himself sick."

"I'm not at all surprised," Vicki muttered, but she ended up letting him eat both frogs he caught. He'd worked so hard at it, bounding this way and that, barking hysterically, that she felt he deserved them.

Back at the house, dusk seemed to stretch for hours, the crickets and Pavarotti singing duets to the setting sun. Vicki's vision dimmed and the sound of the wind moving in the trees became the sound of death quietly approaching the house: the tap of two twigs, a rifle bolt drawn back. She knew she was allowing her imagination to overrule common sense even while she waited for the gunshot that would tell her it wasn't imagination at all. Finally, the darkness drove her to the kitchen table where the hanging bulb surrounded her with a hard edged circle of sight.

At last, Donald lifted his head and, nostrils flaring, announced, "Henry's up."

Vicki pulled her gla.s.ses off and rubbed at her eyes. It was about time.You know it's been a strange day, she mused,when you 're looking forward to the arrival of the bloodsucking undead.Eight Usually, when he awoke in a place other than his carefully s.h.i.+elded sanctuary, there would be a moment of near panic while memory fought to reestablish itself. Tonight, he knew even before full consciousness returned, for the unmistakable scent of the wer saturated his tiny chamber.

He stretched and lay still for a moment, senses extended until they touched Vicki's life. The hunger rose to pulse in time with her heartbeat. He would feed tonight.

As Henry made his way downstairs, Mozart'sDon Giovanni filled the old farmhouse and, he suspected, a good portion of the surrounding countryside. Stereo systems had been one piece of human culture the wer had embraced wholeheartedly. Henry winced as a descant Mozart could never have imagined soared up and over and around the recorded soprano.

Oh, well, I suppose it could be worse.He braced himself against Shadow's enthusiastic welcome.It could be New Kids on the Block.

With one hand fondling Shadow's ears, Henry paused on the kitchen's threshold, allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the light. He half expected to see Vicki seated at the table, but the room was empty save for Donald who sat, feet up, watching Jennifer and Marie work their way through a sink full of dishes. Seconds later, this simple domestic scene shattered as Shadow bounded forward and shoved a cold, wet nose against the back of Marie's bare legs. A plate hit the floor, bounced, and lay there forgotten as both twins chased their younger brother out of the house.

"Evening," Donald grunted as Henry bent to pick up the plate. "Don't suppose you know any opera singers?"

He'd known an opera dancer once, almost two hundred years ago, but that wasn't quite the same thing.

"Sorry, no. Why?"

"Thought if you knew one, you could bring her out." Donald waved an arm in the air, the gesture encompa.s.singDon Giovanni. "Be nice to hear this stuff live for a change."