Dead Wolf (12 page)

Another long silence.

“What makes you think she has been murdered?” he finally said.

“Pen...that’s her name...has been living with this guy, you see…” I began to tell him. I explained about the ‘Ooze Bar’, Marc, and his brother. Rom asked for their surname and I got the feeling that he was writing down what I was telling him. Did this mean he was going to help? I couldn’t be sure. I explained how Marc had been beating Pen and stealing money from her business.

When I’d finished, Rom spoke again.

“Listen, Murphy, these people…
wolves
, they don’t live like us,” he warned me in an almost fatherly tone. “Nothing good will come of this. As far as you know, they haven’t killed no human, so if I were you, I’d leave them to get on with it.”

“I can’t,” I whispered. “Pen is my friend.

I can’t just walk away.”

Realising he wasn’t going to change my mind, he sighed deeply and said, “You’re a good cop, Murphy. I had high hopes for you. Why you’ve gone and got yourself mixed up with a Lycanthrope beats the shit out of me.”

“She’s my friend,” was all I could say.

“I know I’m going to regret this,” he sighed. “I’ll do some digging on this Marc Johnson and his brother on my end and see what I come up with. Give me some information on this
friend
of yours.”

I gave Rom Pen’s description, car registration number, address, and anything else I could think of. I then thanked him.

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “When you get back, me and you are going to have a serious talk about your future on the Force. Now, for Christ’s sake, sit tight and don’t get involved.”

I gave Rom the number of the hotel I was staying at and thanked him again.

“If it wasn’t the fact that you were a Vampyrus and a cop, I’d come down there and kill this freaking wolf, Pen, myself!” He hung up the phone.

Murphy

Despite Rom’s warning not to get involved, I drove back across town, which was now mostly quiet and deserted. It was just short of midnight and I guessed that ‘The Ooze bar’ would be closing soon. I parked just up the street and slid down into my seat and waited for Annie to leave the bar for the night. It was just a waiting game now. It was a game that I had played countless times before, back home while at work.

By 1:30 a.m. there had still been no sign of Annie. I twisted in my seat and stretched.

Maybe I had missed her already? Maybe she finished earlier, before I had even arrived? I had decided to give her another half an hour, when I saw her step out of ‘The Ooze Bar’ and into the night.

I started the engine and crawled slowly up the road some distance behind her. I waited until she had walked a couple of streets and was a safe distance from the bar, when I drew up alongside her and wound down my window.

“Hey, Annie!”

She quickened her pace and didn’t turn to look at me or the car.

“Hey, Annie, it’s me, Jim!”

On realising who it was, she slowed slightly and looked through the open window at me.

“Go away!” she whispered and flashed a quick glance behind her.

“Get in,” I said.

“No! Go away,” she pleaded.

“I just wanted to say thanks for the note.”

“What note? I never sent any note,” she said, looking straight ahead.

“Okay, okay…I never got any note,” I played along. I continued to crawl along beside her as she began to quicken her step.

“How long has Pen been missing?”

“About four days. Now please, just leave me alone!” she said without even turning to look at me.

“You don’t have to be scared, Annie, I can protect you. Just tell me what you know,” I said.

“I won’t need protecting if you just go away!” she whispered.

“Why are you so scared, Annie?”

“Because I feel that something very bad has happened…I think something
bad
has happened to Pen.” This time she did glance sideways at me and I could see the fear in her eyes.

“Like what?” I persisted.

“I don’t know!”

“What’s in the basement?” I pressed.

“Nothing, I think…please, Jim, please leave me alone,” she said.

I could sense her fear and didn’t want to alienate her completely. I hoped that she could maybe be a future source of information – so I let her be.

“Okay, Annie, I’m sorry. Look I’m staying at the local hotel. I’m in room 219 for the next two days. If you need anything or hear anything, just let me know.”

Annie took a sharp right turn and hastily disappeared down another street. I wound up my window and drove straight on – losing Annie from my sight.

Murphy

I was woken to the sound of the telephone ringing. I reached for the phone with my eyes still closed, and knocked it onto the floor of my hotel room. I wriggled from beneath my blankets, dangled over the side of the bed, and picked up the receiver.

“Hello,” I said, stifling a yawn.

“Rise and shine, Murphy,” Rom snapped down the line at me. Even half asleep, I could picture his pinched-looking face and sharp, keen probing eyes. Not the thing I wanted to see first thing in the morning.

“Hello, sir,” I said, sitting up in bed.

“I’ve got some news for you,” he said. “I ran the Johnson boys’ names through the system.

They’re nothing but scum by the looks of it. The whole family is rotten through and through. There ain’t a decent wolf amongst ‘erm.”

“You ever had dealings with them before?” I asked, rubbing sleep from my eyes with my free hand. My mouth tasted like I’d been eating road kill.

“All their lives they’ve been in and out of jail…and you say your friend…this Pen, has been living with one of ‘erm?” he said.

“Yes, the one called Marc,” I reminded him.

“Well, I got someone who owed me a few favours to do some checking on her, too,” Rom told me. “Her father is doing time down in The Hollows for human child abduction. You really know how to pick your friends.”

“Pen hasn’t had contact with her father for years,” I told him. “He abandoned her. Pen is not like the others.”

“Well, I got one of the wardens to visit him down in the cells,” Rom started to explain.

“Her father didn’t want to talk at first, but after my friend yanked on his bollocks for a minute or two, he couldn’t wait to start talking. Apparently, your friend Pen has been promised to this Marc Johnson.”

“What does that mean exactly?” I asked Rom, now feeling fully awake.

“Her father lost her in a card game some years ago...” Rom started.

“A card game!” I spat.

“He was playing cards and losing bad,”

Rom said. “He had nothing left in the pot to gamble with so he offered up his young daughter.

He lost and your friend Pen was then promised to Johnson’s eldest son, Marc, when she came of age.”

“Those fucking animals,” I breathed angrily down the phone.

“Tell me something I don’t already know,”

Rom said. “Don’t you see now? These wolves don’t live like us. They’re scum. Don’t get involved in this, Murphy. It’s not your problem.

However much it disgusts us, these wolves made a deal years ago for Pen and they are keeping to it. Just come home.”

“I can’t, not until I know Pen is safe,” I breathed down the phone.

“She is alive,” he suddenly said.

“How do you know?” I asked, jumping from the bed, and reaching for my clothes with my free hand.

“Her car registration popped up at a local ANPR system just a few days ago,” Rom said.

“Where?” I snapped.

“On Bleachers Road,” he said.

“I know it,” I breathed. “It’s the main road which heads out of town.”

“Then that’s your answer,” Rom sighed.

“Your friend has hit the road. Decided to do a runner from this guy she’s been promised to. Just come home, son. You never know; she might show up here.”

To hear that Pen’s car had been pinged by the local Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras raised my hopes that she was safe and well.

“Are you still there, Murphy?” Rom asked, cutting into the silence.

“Huh?” I said thoughtfully. “Yeah, I’m still here.”

“There’s nothing you can do to help,”

Rom said. “Don’t get yourself in wolf issues – not this kind anyhow.”

“But...” I started.

“No
buts
, Murphy,” Rom barked, any understanding that he might have felt for me now gone. “Get your arse back home. I’ll see you in my office at nine tomorrow morning!”

The phone
clicked
as he cut the line dead.

I placed the phone back on the stand beside the bed. Was Pen really alive and well? I wondered. I hoped so. Maybe she was in hiding somewhere? Perhaps she had rented a room? But what I couldn’t understand was – why hadn’t she contacted me?

With these thoughts clawing away at me, I took a shower and got dressed. I slipped my handcuffs through the loop on my belt, holstered my gun, threw on my jacket, and headed for the door. It was then that I saw the envelope lying on the floor. I picked it up and turned it over in my hands. On the front somebody had scribbled ‘
Jim
’.

I yanked open my hotel door; there was no one there. I tore open the envelope and read what was written on the folded piece of paper inside:

Check out Dorothy’s ruby slippers!

I recognised the handwriting as that of the previous letter writer. Why can’t Annie just talk to me, instead of posting these cryptic messages? I wondered. But then again, if she felt secure in communicating with me in this way, it was okay with me. At least somebody was prepared to help me find out what had happened to Pen.

Check out Dorothy’s ruby slippers!
But what does it mean? I wondered. I placed the piece of paper back into the envelope and tucked it into my jacket pocket.

I remembered the night Pen and I had spent in The Hollows watching the magical moving pictures,
The Wizard of Oz
, together. I could clearly see Dorothy standing there, beautiful and innocent, clicking the heels of her ruby slippers together and saying over and over,
‘There’s no place like home! There’s no place
like home!’

Maybe that was it! Perhaps that was what the message alluded to – Pen had gone home? Maybe she had had enough of Marc and his brother and her ailing bar and had just gone back to her world beyond the Fountain of Souls.

No, not likely, I pondered. Pen had told me of her reluctance to ever go home again.

Perhaps she had found some other place to live?

But it always came back to the same question:
If
Pen had done any of these things, why hadn’t
she contacted me?

“Think, Jim, think,” I said out loud.

Rom had said that I had to be in the office by 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, so that gave me less than twenty-four hours to find out what had happened to Pen. Rom seemed to believe that Pen was alive because her car had been...

I picked up the phone again and dialled his number.

“Rom,” he said irritably.

“It’s Mur...” I started.

“This had better be good!” he snapped.

“You said that Pen’s car had been picked up on that ANPR camera, I said. “But that doesn’t mean she was driving it.”

“Jesus-wept,” Rom groaned. “Stop chasing ghosts and get your arse back...”

“Can you get someone to pull the images?” I asked, my heart thumping. I knew I had already pushed my luck with Rom.

“Listen to me!” Rom roared, and I had to pull the phone away from my ear, he bellowed so loud. “I’ve got better things to do than go wasting my time chasing wolves...”

“But I believe Pen has been murdered,” I said. “Please help me and I promise as soon as I get back I’ll happily give you my badge and leave the Force. I just need to know that my friend is...”

“She’s a wolf!” he cut in.

“But she’s not like the others,” I insisted.

“I thought the Vampyrus were meant to help those wolves who wanted to break free of their curse...”

“And we are,” Rom barked. “But I think you’re too close to this wolf. I believe your judgment is clouded.”

“What’s so wrong about wanting to help a friend?”

“She’s a wolf!” he almost screamed.

“So she doesn’t deserve our protection, then?” I tried to reason.

There was a silence. I waited for his response to come.

“You don’t leave that hotel room until I call you back,” he said finally, then hung up the phone.

Loosening my jacket, I lay back on my unmade bed. I crossed my legs at the ankles and laced my fingers behind me head. My mind went back to the note which Annie had snuck beneath the door for me. Then sitting bolt upright, I shouted, “Of course! Dorothy’s ruby slippers! The ruby slippers in the display case in Pen’s bedroom!”

That was the answer. That was what Annie had been guiding me to in her letter. But having the answer only perplexed me further.

How would those ruby slippers help me find Pen?

What did they have to do with her disappearance?

And the biggest question of all – how was I going to get to those ruby slippers with Marc and Steve living at Pen’s house?

Murphy

I popped the end of my pipe between my lips, lit it, and inhaled deeply.

When was I gonna get a half-decent
break?
I asked myself. I was running around in circles. My best friend had suddenly vanished, or worse, there were two criminals encamped in her house, I’ve got a single mum who’s too scared to even talk to me but has a passion for sending me cryptic messages that the FBI would have difficulty in cracking, and my Inspector wants to sack me!

As I contemplated my next move, I puffed on my pipe and squirted jets of smoke out through my nostrils. I still had the ruby slipper mystery to solve…whatever that had to do with anything, I did not know. All I could do was wait for Rom to get back to me. Perhaps he was right and Pen had driven off, so desperate to escape Marc and his brother that she didn’t have the chance to contact me. I couldn’t do anything for sure until I had some kind of proof that Pen had been hurt, or worse. I spent the day pacing back and forth across my hotel room. I didn’t want to go out for food just in case I missed Rom’s telephone call, so I ordered some to my room.