Return of the Wolf Man (26 page)

“Evening, Ms. Hutchinson—”

“Hello, Trooper Willis.”

“I’m looking for Clyde,” he said. “Have you heard from him?”

“Not a word, Matt. Not since he called this morning to ask me how I enjoyed my date with him. It was uneventful, in case you were wondering.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Hutchinson. I meant to ask but it’s been a very busy day.”

“I know,” she said. “Come on over—I’ve got some leftover pizza.”

“Maybe later. Listen, if you hear from Clyde would you please have him call me.”

“I will, sir,” she said.

Willis thanked her and hung up. His annoyance shaded to concern. Deputy Trooper Clyde could have walked here in the time since he’d first called. Willis rang the officer’s apartment, though he couldn’t think of a reason why Clyde would have gone there. The answering machine picked up after two rings and Willis replaced the handset. He absently dug at a worn hole in his belt while wondering where Clyde could be. If the deputy had been called out on an emergency, he would have radioed Willis or at least informed Ms. Hutchinson. Clyde wasn’t a drinker. He didn’t play the lottery and in any case was the sort of diligent worker who would have shown up if he’d won a couple million bucks. Even if his sick old mother had died, he’d have phoned on the way to her apartment. All Willis could think of was that the deputy had had a car accident.

Willis stood and looked out at a clutch of volunteers who were working crowd control. “Mr. Bevan! Billy Bevan!”

Seventy-three-year-old Billy Bevan turned. He acknowledged Willis with a wave and jogged over. The tall, fit former state trooper had been keeping a bunch of teenagers with lavender hair, baggy shorts, and camcorders away from the inferno. As soon as Bevan had left them, the teenagers moved closer.

“I swear, Matt,” Bevan grumbled, “they’re as dumb as they were when you were in school.”

“No, Mr. Bevan,” Willis said. “Dumber. Our heads were empty but theirs are stuffed with crap.” Willis took one last look down the sloping two-lane road that led from town. Clyde wasn’t on it. “Look, I’m going to run back to the office to see where my deputy is. Would you mind running the show here?”

“Not at all,” Bevan said, throwing off a little salute. “You need a break?”

“No,” Willis said. “I need to find Deputy Clyde.”

“Maybe he stopped by to see Josephine Hutchinson.” Bevan winked. “I hear he’s sweet on her.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think that’s where Clyde’s gone,” Willis replied. “Just hold down the fort. I’ll be back as soon as I find him.”

“Will do,” Bevan said.

Willis got back in his car and drove along the most direct route to the cove, the way the deputy would have come. There was some early evening traffic, mostly around the Venezuelan Volcano Club, the town’s one remaining hot spot, and the nearby Lewton Cinema, which showed low-budget exploitation films. Otherwise the roads were empty. There was no Clyde and no sign of a crack-up.

Seven minutes later Willis was at the town hall walking briskly through its empty, echoing corridors. Clyde’s patrol car had been in the parking lot and the trooper knew for certain now that something was wrong. He also had a feeling that Lawrence Talbot was behind whatever it was.

You’re a freakin’ jerk for leaving them alone here,
he reproached himself.
Talbot is nuts. He said he burned up the Tombs while he was fighting a monster built from dead bodies. He claims to be someone who was born around the turn of the century. He was vouched for by a woman who—Willis’s instincts told him—had never met the man before she came to LaMirada.

What Talbot looked and smelled like to Willis was an escaped criminal, one with an agenda. All day long the trooper had quietly been running checks on the whereabouts of Dr. Cooke’s family and friends. Using insurance records, he’d also had the records officer in Naples look into the backgrounds of her patients. He wanted to make sure that none of them had a record. The scenario he’d worked out in his head was that Talbot and a partner or two might have stashed loot in the castle years ago. Or maybe they’d heard that there was some kind of treasure there, buried in the cellar. Now Caroline was being forced to help them find it. If she double-crossed them, someone died.

The trooper slowed when he saw that the office door was open and the light was on. Clyde never left it open, even when he was there. Willis unholstered his .38 and held the gun beside his face, barrel up. He edged along the wall. When he reached the office and stuck his head inside, Willis no longer entertained the idea that Talbot was a criminal. The man was criminally insane.

Clyde was lying just inside the doorway. His throat was cut wide open and his gun was holstered. Clyde was a four-time Collier County Quick Draw Contest winner. Whatever had happened here had happened suddenly. Willis didn’t bother to check for a pulse. Most of Clyde’s blood was on the outside, spread in a thick sheet beneath him. The trooper stepped around the dark pool and saw Tom Stevenson. The attorney was lying on his side near Clyde’s desk. His clothes were soaked from the overturned water cooler but there was no blood. Willis hurried over and knelt beside him. There were ugly bruises under his jaw but his pulse was strong.

Willis holstered his gun, pulled out his handkerchief, and mopped up some of the water. He wrung it out over the attorney’s face.

“Tom! Wake up!”

The attorney moaned. Willis slapped his check lightly.

“Tom! I need you, dammit! C’mon!”

Stevenson moaned again but didn’t move or open his eyes. Taking a closer look at the bruises, Willis began to wonder if his neck had been broken. That six-foot-four sonofabitch Talbot was probably strong enough to do something like that.

Willis spread the handkerchief on the young man’s forehead then went to his cubicle and called the hospital. Next he phoned the state barracks. He reported the murder, put out an all points bulletin on Talbot and Caroline, and asked for reinforcements to help with the crash and to fill in for the late David Clyde.

The words caught in his throat.
The late David Clyde.

Willis also called the coast guard and asked them to seal off La Viuda. If Talbot had been looking for something, there was a good chance he’d go back.

As Willis waited for the ambulance, he tried not to dwell on his own carelessness, the negligence—no, the outright
stupidity
—that had cost a good-hearted and dedicated man his life. Willis should have followed his gut that morning and locked Talbot up. But he’d allowed his instincts to be overruled by Dr. Cooke’s endorsement and his own concerns about unlawful arrest. Now his colleague was dead, Stevenson was injured, and God alone knew where Dr. Cooke was.

God,
he told himself,
and Lawrence Talbot.

As Willis heard the siren of the ambulance racing down Roget Road, he rose and opened the equipment locker in the back of his cubicle. He selected a Winchester Model 52 rifle from the rack and made himself a promise. Deputy Trooper David Clyde would not die unavenged.

EIGHTEEN

S
tephen Banning, Jr., had had it.

He’d had it with the soaking wet clothes he was wearing. He’d had it with the foul mood he was in. He’d had it with the entire damn day. But most of all he’d had it with the gawkers. The people, mostly teenagers, from LaMirada and the surrounding towns. If they wanted to get closer to a smouldering helicopter, let ’em. If they wanted to ogle at the cooked bodies, they could do that too. If they wanted to pick up burned pieces of metal or plastic or flesh, they could be his guest. Now that the fire was nearly out all the stonemason wanted to do was get home, take a long hot shower, and go to sleep.

He couldn’t even muster a smile as he walked past one of the volunteer ladies who was serving coffee to the fire fighters. The round-faced, twice-widowed Helen Brown was the elementary school English teacher and a second selectman. If she hadn’t written that article for the newspaper about how LaMirada had to forget its “weird past” and move on—that’s what she called it, a
weird
past—then he might have gotten to know her better. But he couldn’t go out with that kind of a woman. What the hell would they talk about?

Helen beamed at him as he passed. “Are you leaving, Mr. Banning?”

“I am, Helen,” he replied with a tip of his Confederate cap. “I been helpin’ to patch leaky hoses and chase away rubberneckers all night.”

“You’re a hard-working man,” she said sincerely.

“I’m a whipped man,” he replied.

“No doubt. And I thank you for your help, Stephen. This day has been quite an ordeal for all of LaMirada. I’ve been taking notes,” she said, patting her apron. “I want to write something for the paper that will salute the dedication and courage of our fellow citizens.”

“Now
that’s
a good idea for a newspaper article,” he said obscurely.

She continued to smile sweetly, her eyes following him as he shuffled past. “Good night,” she said.

“ ’Night,” he replied.

Banning shivered. He liked her but he didn’t trust well-meaning people. They were always trying to impose their sensible views on others. He didn’t want life to be so practical. It needed mystery and awe and a healthy respect for the unknown. Which was another reason Banning had decided to go home. He didn’t want to be there when the volunteer fire fighters and medical technicians from the hospital hauled out whatever was left of that giant. He’d seen him when he was thrashing about and he was a pretty ugly sight then. He couldn’t imagine what it’d look like after sitting in an inferno for the better part of an hour. And one thing he didn’t need were more nightmares. He’d had enough of those growing up in LaMirada.

Lord God, why are you
thinkin’
about this twisted damn creature?
Banning asked himself. He trudged up a grassy hill to the paved parking area the beach shared with Waggner Park.

Yes, Stephen Banning, Jr., had had it. He’d had it with this day, with his fellow LaMiradans, and with monsters.

He stopped by the door of his new, bright red pickup truck. He reached into the deep pocket of his overalls and withdrew his key ring. He climbed in and started the engine. He rolled down the window—no machine-cooled air for him—and backed away slowly, carefully, as he always did. He drove from the parking lot, which was crowded with the cars of volunteers and oglers. Then he headed down the sloping path to the two-lane road that led back to town. Sticking to the thirty-five m.p.h. speed limit, Banning headed back around the park to LaMirada town center.

There was blood in the heart of the town. Stephen Banning noticed it because he happened to glance to the left as he drove past the movie theater to see what was playing there. The blood was pooled at the base of a Dumpster beside Mrs. Bally’s Bakery, the only occupied shop in a failed strip mall next to the triplex. The blood flashed briefly in the glow of a streetlamp as he passed.

“Ohmigod,” he croaked as he put on his directional and pulled over. “Crap.
Crap.
God Jesus, excuse my Spanish, but why me?”

His stomach in turmoil, Banning hesitated for a moment. Sucking down a breath, he left the engine running and the door open as he crossed the street. He walked quickly toward the Dumpster. He hoped it wasn’t blood that he’d seen, but jam or pie filling that had leaked from a trash bag.

It wasn’t jelly. It was Mrs. Bally’s blood. She was lying inside the Dumpster, her throat torn open like the neck of a Jiffy Pop. Muscles and tendons were hanging out and the bones beneath them were snapped and twisted in sickening ways. Her head was inverted, the top of it lying just about where her chin should have been.

Banning screamed and ran back to the truck, convinced that he was just inches ahead of something that was trying to get him. He slammed the door, opened the glove compartment, fumbled with his cellular phone, and punched in 911. After reporting the crime to Josephine Hutchinson, Banning screamed again and didn’t stop until Trooper Willis had arrived.

NINETEEN

T
o a predator, death has many odors.