Return of the Wolf Man (28 page)

“Yes,” Talbot said, staring past him. He didn’t want to ask but he had to know. “How is Dr. Cooke?”

“We don’t know,” Willis said. “She’s missing. No one’s seen or heard from her. Now, Mr. Talbot. You want to tell me how you got all those cuts?”

“I’m not sure I can,” Talbot replied. He was still staring ahead, poking gently through mental ashes. He rarely remembered events that occured during his transformations. But when there were especially vivid triggers, such as unusual objects or people, events sometimes came back to him.

“You’re not sure,” Willis repeated. “Were you drunk?”

“No, sir.”

“You seem pretty sure about that.”

“I am. I don’t drink.”

“Because you used to? Did you ever abuse alcohol?”

“No.” Talbot sighed and looked away.

Willis grabbed Talbot’s chin and turned his face toward him. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

Talbot wrested his chin away. Even before the curse he’d never liked being manhandled. But he looked at Willis. He looked at him with contempt.

“You know,” Willis said, “I’m in a nasty mood. I didn’t get any sleep last night. So are you going to tell me what happened to you or am I going to have to charge you with the murder of my deputy?”

Talbot looked at Willis. “Deputy Clyde is dead?”

“His throat was cut wide open at the station house. I found him bone-white and sprawled in blood.”

“How did he die?” Talbot said urgently. “I’ve got to know—did the killer use teeth or some manner of weapon? And about the blood—where was it found?”

“Mr. Talbot, I don’t think that’s any of your business—”

“But it is,” he said. “Please, it’s important.”

“Why?” Willis asked. “You keeping a scrapbook of your crimes?”

“What if this wasn’t my doing?” Talbot asked. “Do you want to find the killer or don’t you?”

“Yeah, I want to find him.” Willis took a step back from the bed. “Doc?” he said over his shoulder. “You examined the body. Tell Talbot what he wants to know.”

Benson stepped forward. “Deputy Clyde was killed with a large knife,” he said. “The wound was extremely long and clean. He also had about three ounces of blood left in his body. The rest of it was on the floor.”

“Not on the walls?” Talbot asked hopefully.

“No,” Willis cut in. “Only our baker, Mrs. Bally, died like that.”

Talbot’s expression collapsed.

“You ever see a hot dog split on a grill?” Willis asked. “That’s what Mrs. Bally’s throat looked like. And her blood was splashed all over the pavement and the side walls of the trash bin we found her in. Now you tell me—why did you want to know?”

“Murders are like fingerprints,” Talbot told him. “Different people execute them differently.”

“That’s true,” Willis said. “So whose fingerprints are these?”

“I’m not sure,” Talbot replied. “But the ones on the deputy are not mine.”

“What about Mrs. Bally?” Willis asked. “Is there anything you want to say about her death?”

Talbot did not reply. He couldn’t—not now. He had to remain out of prison so he could try to find Caroline Cooke.

Willis paced for a moment. “Mr. Talbot, Mrs. Bally was a very good woman. She fed the homeless, sent cookies to orphans, remembered people’s birthdays. And Deputy Clyde was a very good man. He was the sole support of his sickly mother. Mrs. Clyde is in another room of this hospital right now under very heavy sedation. Before they put her under, I promised that I’d find out what happened to her son.” The trooper pulled a leather notepad from his back pocket. “Maybe it’ll help you if we take things in the order they seem to have happened.” He flipped open the cover and read from a list. “Do you know what happened to the cell bars, Mr. Talbot? Any recollection as to how they were broken off?”

Talbot shook his head slowly. Now that Willis mentioned it, however, he did have a very dim memory of the bars snapping loose—during a violent struggle, he seemed to recall. The vision lasted for just a moment and then faded.
A struggle with whom?
Talbot wondered.
And why?

“The station house window was broken from the inside,” Willis went on. “Can you tell me how
that
happened?”

Again, Talbot shook his head slowly. But in his mind he saw a dark figure leaping toward it from the floor. A black shape clutching a fair one.

Talbot’s brow darkened.
Could it have been . . . him? Could it have been the Prince of Darkness?

“The water cooler was overturned and smashed,” Willis said. “Any idea what happened there?”

“Yes,” Talbot said, shutting his eyes. “I remember—someone stumbling into it.”

“Who?”

“I’m not sure. Caroline, maybe? I remember it falling and shattering. But I’m not sure who knocked it over or why.”

“Well, that’s something,” Willis said, writing down what Talbot had said. “There’s something else I need to know. We found that eight-foot giant of yours at the castle yesterday—”

Talbot’s eyes snapped open. “You found the Monster?”

“We found the perpetrator you described,” Willis said impatiently, “but we lost him in the helicopter crash. He may have been burned up or washed out to sea. You mentioned some family, the Frankensteins. Do you happen to know where they live?”

“They’re from the Tyrolean Alps, though I don’t believe there are any living relatives.” Talbot’s brow creased. “But don’t worry. You didn’t lose him.”

“What do you mean?”

“He can’t die. He has to be destroyed. And—” Talbot’s brow wrinkled.

“And what?”

“I’m certain I saw him somewhere,” Talbot said. He had, but he couldn’t remember where or when. His fists balled in frustration. “I’m sorry,” he said earnestly. “I wish I could help you.”

Willis regarded Talbot for a moment then looked back at the notebook. “We found an emaciated body in Vesta Cove, about a half mile from where the Harris girl stumbled on you. The victim was impaled on a broken oar. Looks like she was about eighty years old. Do you know anything about her?”

Talbot’s brow wrinkled more deeply He
did
remember an oar. Also a boat. And a woman.

“No,” he said to himself. He looked up, his eyes more alive than before. “No, Trooper Willis. She wasn’t a woman.”

“Pardon?”

“The woman . . . wasn’t a woman.” Talbot remembered her clinging to his back, biting and clawing. But she was not a mortal female. She was a vampire, a bride of Dracula. He had been fighting Count Dracula by the sea. He remembered the broken oar jutting up from the boat. He remembered holding the woman above his head and bringing her down hard. He remembered the blood and the shrieks—

“Dr. Mornay!” Talbot said suddenly. “Officer, that was Sandra Mornay, Dracula’s mistress!”

Benson finished applying the bandage to Talbot’s throat. “Mr. Talbot, it could not have been Dr. Mornay.”

“I tell you, it was! I remember now—”

“No, you’re wrong,” Benson said. “Sandra Mornay died over half a century ago. My mentor, Dr. Aubert, signed the death certificate. He told me about that night while we were at the crash site. He told me about all the deaths at the castle.”

“Dr. Mornay died but she was not dead,” Talbot insisted.

Benson looked at Talbot then at Willis. Benson walked away, shaking his head.

“You’ve got to believe me!” Talbot insisted. He strained briefly against his restraint but the strap refused to give. “Dr. Mornay was transformed into one of the undead! As soon as she arrived at the masquerade ball I could tell that Count Dracula had infected her with his pestilence.”

“What masquerade ball was that?” Willis asked.

“The one held here in LaMirada,” Talbot said. “It was on the night Dracula tried to put Wilbur Grey’s brain in the body of the Monster.”

“Wilbur Grey,” Willis said. He made a note of Talbot’s reference. “You’re referring to that shipping clerk who disappeared fifty years ago?”

“I don’t know what happened to him,” Talbot said, exasperated. “All I know is that the Count made Dr. Mornay a vampire like himself. She must have remained in her coffin all these years until he summoned her.”

Benson looked at Willis before leaving the room. “Matt, I strongly suggest bringing Dr. Werdegast in on this.”

“Yeah, I was just thinking that.”

“Soon.”

“I will,” Willis said.

“Who is Dr. Werdegast?” Talbot asked.

Willis told him that she was a psychiatrist.

Talbot looked down. “That’s what I thought. Then—you don’t believe any of what I’m telling you?”

“Except for what happened to the water cooler, no,” Willis said. “But Dr. Benson’s right. You should speak with Dr. Werdegast before we continue. Some of what you’re saying might make sense to her—I don’t know. And I suppose you also shouldn’t say anything else until there’s a lawyer present. Unfortunately, the only other attorney in town, D’Arcy Corrigan, is away.”

“What about Mr. Stevenson?” Talbot asked.

“He got pretty banged up last night,” Willis replied. “We assume that whoever killed Deputy Trooper Clyde attacked Stevenson as well. The doctor said that someone with a very powerful grip tried to strangle him. It caused serious oxygen deprivation. He also took a nasty hit on the head. He’s awake now and resting, though those two factors probably account for his hallucinations.”

“What hallucinations?” Talbot asked.

Willis was silent for a moment. “Frankly, Mr. Talbot, they’re the kind I’m sure you can spin a whole new fairy tale from.”

“But these aren’t fairy tales!” Talbot yelled. “What do I have to do to convince you? I’m not insane and I’m not making these things up!
Why
would I lie?”

“To protect yourself.”

“From what?” Talbot demanded. “Trooper, I
want
to die! I’ve wanted to die for nearly fifty years, to put an end to these nights of horror. But I’m not the only one you have to worry about. You’ve got to tell me. What did Mr. Stevenson see last night?”

Willis tapped his pen on his notebook. “All right, Mr. Talbot. I’ll play along. When Mr. Stevenson came to this morning he told us that last night he thought he saw a bear, or something that looked like a bear, fighting an albino in a cape.” Willis was still looking at him. “What does that mean to you?”

“It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Talbot said. “These strange things Mr. Stevenson saw—he wasn’t hallucinating. The man with the cape was almost certainly Count Dracula. And the bear wasn’t a bear. It was a wolf.”

“We don’t have wolves here.”

“But you do,” Talbot said.
“I
was that wolf.”

“You? In a costume?”

“No,” Talbot said. “Last night the moon was full and I underwent another of my transformations.”

“Into a wolf,” Willis said dubiously.

Talbot nodded.

“I’ve heard enough,” Willis said. “I’ll go and send for Dr. Werdegast.”

“Wait,” Talbot said. “Just listen. I didn’t tell you this before because Dr. Cooke didn’t want me to. She didn’t think you’d believe me.”

“She was right.”

“But you must! Mrs. Bally—I almost certainly attacked her. The only reason I didn’t want to tell you is because you need me.”

“For what?”

“To find Dr. Cooke,” he said. “To help stop Count Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster.” Talbot slipped his shoulder from the white hospital gown and bared the pentagram on his left breast. “Do you see this?”

Willis came closer. “It looks like some kind of cult thing.”

“It’s a five-pointed star, the mark of the werewolf, the symbol of Satan—two horns upturned and the other three points inverted. The denial of the Holy Trinity.”

“You’re a devil worshiper—?”

“No,” Talbot said. “The wound was inflicted on me over fifty years ago by Bela, who was himself a werewolf.”

Willis didn’t bother writing that down.

“I was lucky,” Talbot went on. “Joan Raymond helped me die and then sealed me in the basement of the castle. I remained there until two nights ago, when the wall was torn down. Dr. Cooke was there. She saw. She believes.” Talbot looked down at the bed, his eyes ranging over the sheets.

Dr. Cooke.
He suddenly saw her face, vivid in his mind. Looking in at him through the bars. And then—

“The station house,” Talbot said.

Willis seemed surprised. “What about it? Do you remember something?”

“Caroline was there . . . along with Mr. Stevenson and Deputy Clyde. I remember that now. But we weren’t alone.”

Willis began writing. “Who else was there?”

Talbot’s eyes narrowed. He saw the black shape and a fair figure leaping toward the window. Only now the shape wasn’t faceless. It was Caroline and she was being carried away by Dracula. Talbot thought hard—he saw her again after that. Lying on the rock in the cove. Walking through the surf. Climbing up the ramp—

“The boat!” he blurted. “She’s on the boat!”

“Who is? Dr. Cooke?”

“Yes,” Talbot said. “She’s on Dracula’s boat. We’ve got to find it.” Talbot swung his legs off the bed.

“Hold on, Mr. Talbot,” Willis said.

Talbot tried to get up but the leather strap stopped him. “You’ve got to let me go!” he cried. “Last night Dracula left with Caroline and the Frankenstein Monster. I see them now, sailing away from the cove.”

“Sailing where?”

“Out to sea. Caroline was in a trance.” Talbot shook his fists violently. He was angry at himself. “I should have realized this sooner. Caroline’s a doctor, just like Sandra Mornay was. And Dracula needs a surgeon to help him with the Monster.” He pulled again at the strap. “Let me out! We’ve got to stop him!”

“You’re not going anywhere—”

“You don’t understand! The Devil alone knows what Dracula will do if that creature is brought to full strength!”

“Mr. Talbot,” Willis said, “the waters off Florida are patrolled by the Coast Guard. There’s no way a boat larger than a canoe could have slipped in and out of LaMirada without being picked up by radar. And being picked up, the boat would have been stopped and searched.”

“If Dracula’s boat were sighted,” Talbot replied, “then whoever investigated found nothing, I assure you. Count Dracula would have put them under a spell, convinced them that the boat was never even there.”