The Frenzy Way (10 page)

“That’s right,” Mace said.

“And why is that?”

“Because she answered the call.”

“You’re her superior, right? You can take the case from her.”

Mace grunted. “It’s not my job to work cases.”

“Oh, that’s right. You’re an administrator now, aren’t you?”

Just like the old days
, Mace thought. As a TV reporter for Channel 4 and one of Cheryl’s competitors, Stokes had hounded Mace during the Full Moon Killer case and had benefited from Mace’s ultimate success, parlaying his reporting on Gomez’s murders into his current NYPD position. “I like to think I’m still in the thick of things, but my job is supervising detectives, not working cases.”

Stokes’s features intensified. “My phone hasn’t stopped ringing in the last twenty-four hours. This morning I go before my brothersand sisters from the press corps and tell them there’s a maniac running around this city who believes he’s a werewolf. He tears his victims to pieces and runs off with their heads. You don’t think that’s going to start a panic? No matter how I downplay these gruesome details, they’re what any sensible reporter is going to glom onto. I need to convince the press—so they can convince the public—that we’ve got this situation under control. I can’t do that with Detective Lane. I can’t sell a rookie Murder Police. But I can sell you, Mace. You brought in Gomez. You’re a bona fide hero. Because of that damned book, you’re famous.”

Certain that Stokes had a similar book in him just waiting to get out, Mace ignored the remark. “I’m a captain. I supervise detectives. I don’t work cases.”

“Then give this to someone else. Someone with a little experience and some
cojones
between their legs.”

Mace stepped closer. “That’s what’s bothering you, isn’t it? You don’t care that Lane is green. You care that she’s female.”

“It does present a certain image problem. The press is made up of children. I know this because I used to play in their sandbox. And on a big murder case like this, they need to see that Daddy is in charge, not Mommy.”

“Lane stays in charge, Diega assists her, and I back her. End of story. Public Affairs doesn’t dictate how I run my unit.”

“
Greaaaaat.”
Stokes raised both arms in a gesture of futility. “If this backfires, we’ll both be missing heads.” Turning on one heel, he left the office.

“The Indian’s nature can no more be trusted than the wolf’s. Tame him, cultivate him, strive to Christianize him, as you will, and the sight of blood will in an instant call out the savage, wolfish, devilish instincts of the race.”

—1862 petition to President Abraham Lincoln by citizens of St. Paul, Minnesota

John Stalk drove his black Jeep Wrangler Golden Eagle over the bumpy dirt road to the tribal police station located on the Chautauqua Reservation, part of the Seneca Indian Nation of New York’s Iroquois Confederacy. The reservation stretched from Lake Erie to Canada Way Creek and had a population of 2,412, living mostly in single-family homes. Several businesses operated within its borders, including a tobacco shop, a grocery store, a bookstore, hunting supply store, and a bingo parlor.

Stalk had served as a member of the tribal police force for over a year. He worked part-time, which allowed him to study with Tom Lenape, a self-proclaimed shaman. Pulling into the flat brick building’s parking lot, he switched off the engine but continued to listen to his CD: Billy Childish, a poet, author, and musician who chronicled the downfall and plight of the American Indian. He listened to Billy whenever he grew tired of U2 and Alicia Keys.

As a boy he had visited the reservation with his father but had never dreamed he would one day live there. “Chief” Dan had been the head of the very tribal police force on which Stalk now served, until he had met Sylvia Lyons, a Caucasian teacher who performed volunteer work for the reservation’s children. Dan and Sylvia married one year later, and Dan left the poverty-stricken reservation for what he hoped would be a more prosperous life in Niagara County. When the Niagara Falls Police Academy rejected his employment application outright, without explanation and despite his experience, he turned to welding at a local factory to support Sylvia and their unborn first child.

Stalk grew up the youngest of three siblings and had been Dan’s only offspring to show interest in his Indian heritage. He’d enjoyed accompanying his father on day trips to the reservation and on weekend excursions to the family retreat in the Adirondacks, where they hunted and fished together. Dan taught his son to respect nature and wildlife and entertained him with tales of tribal police work. After graduating from high school, Stalk had enlisted in the marines. He found himself assigned to the Middle East, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq. While he battled poorly defined enemies, his mother lost her own fight with lung cancer. By the time of Stalk’s discharge, his brother and sister had moved away to a warmer climate with a stronger economy. Stalk elected to remain with his father; someone had to look after the old man.

He had been shocked by Dan’s appearance: his father had grown frail and despondent since Sylvia’s funeral and kept her ashes in an urn on the mantel. Dan’s spirits only lifted when Stalk received his acceptance letter from the Niagara Falls Police Academy. At first pleased that his father felt vindicated, Stalk soon discovered he disliked policework. Drug activity near the Canadian border scarred the economically challenged city, and political corruption and organized crime ran rampant. When a good old boy on the force called him “Chief” in a derogatory tone, Stalk had nearly broken the man’s arm with a move he had learned in the corps. He earned the respect of his colleagues over time but remained a loner, his father his only confidant.

When Dan’s health worsened, Stalk took a three-month leave of absence, the maximum allowed by the department, to care for the old man. They planned a trip to the mountainside cabin, but Dan died before they could make it. Stalk obtained permission from the tribal council to bury his parents’ ashes on the Chautauqua Reservation. His brother and sister did not attend the ceremony. Stalk put the house on the market to appease them, but Dan had willed the cabin to him alone. And so he had traveled to it, intending to spend the remainder of his leave there to decide whether he wished to remain on the force. On that first night back in the cabin, a wolf’s howl changed his life forever.

Stalk entered the police station with a mild sense of pride. On his childhood visits, the tribal police had worked out of a single room in the Tribal Operations building, which also housed a fire department. Now each agency had its own modern building. The police department included training facilities, a gym, and three detention cells. He wore a uniform shirt open at the collar with a tribal patch on one sleeve and blue jeans pulled over motorcycle boots. Marion Morningstar, a chunky woman with a bright smile, sat at the reception desk. She wore an identical shirt, her hair in long braids.

“Good morning, Morningstar,” he said as he did whenever they worked together.

“Good morning, Cornstalk.”

“Ouch.”

She offered a wide smile, and he entered the squad room.

Tribal Police Chief Roy Diondega sat with his shoes on his desk. He wore a full uniform, with a string tie, and a different colored cowboy hat each day of the week. Today he wore a black hat with silver trim. Mason Kilidee, his right-hand man, stood beside him. They stared at the TV mounted in an upper corner.

“What’s going on?” Stalk said.

“They got skinwalkers in New York City,” Diondega said.

Stalk’s spine tensed up. “What do you mean?”

“You’ll see after the commercials. What are you doing in so early?”

Still unnerved, Stalk tossed a manila envelope onto Diondega’s desk. “Here you go: proof that Gaskosada is illegally dumping waste from his casino on the reservation.”

Diondega and Kilidee exchanged looks; then Diondega’s eyes settled on the envelope. “Proof, huh?”

“That’s right.”

Stanley Gaskosada owned a new casino just outside the reservation’s border. He employed half the adult population of the reservation but at dirt-cheap wages. Stalk had discovered more than one mountain of garbage that included casino napkins, but Diondega had been reluctant to press the matter, leading Stalk to suspect bribery. Cheaper to buy a police chief than to hire a cartage firm, Stalk figured.

“Gaskosada’s a powerful man,” Kilidee said. “Why do you want to stir this up?”

“Because he’s shitting on our land,” Stalk said in an even tone.

“It’s his land more than it’s yours.”

“Then he’s shitting on his land—illegally.”

Kilidee’s voice rose. “You know how many people have food on their tables because of …”

Stalk eyed his colleague’s belly. “I see you’re not starving.”

Diondega raised one hand. “Shhh. The news is back on. I’ll talk to Gaskosada, John.”

A newswoman appeared on the screen, standing before a brick building—much larger than the tribal police station, Stalk guessed—with NYPD officers loitering behind her. As she spoke to the camera, she brushed aside strands of blonde hair the wind blew in her face. The name Carol Sporada flashed beneath her.

“Jim, I’m standing outside One Police Plaza in Lower Manhattan. Just minutes ago, Carl Stokes, the Commissioner of Public Information, confirmed that last night’s brutal murder of NYU student Sarah Harper bore striking similarities to the murder of her professor Terrence Glenzer the previous night.” The image shifted to a Caucasian police official standing at a podium, speaking to reporters as cameras flashed. “Stokes confirmed that Harper had been dismembered, her assailant escaped through a second-story window, and the word—let me make sure I get this right—
nahual
was written on one wall of the victim’s apartment in what appears to be human blood.” Carol’s image replaced that of the press conference.
“Nahual
is a Mexican word meaning ‘shape-shifter’ or ‘were-creature.’ You’ll remember that the word
skinwalker
, a Native American term for ‘werewolf,’ was written on Terrence Glenzer’s apartment wall, also in blood.”

Skinwalker
, Stalk thought.
Nahual. Werewolf.
His stomach tightened as a closer image of Carl Stokes filled the screen.

“What we have here is a very sick, twisted, and powerful individual,” Stokes said, “not some kind of blood cult. We’re following several leads and expect to have a suspect in custody soon.” Carol came on screen again. “The grisly messages recall the Tate-LaBianca murders committed by the followers of Charles Manson in California in 1969. In that notorious case, Manson Family members wrote the phrases ‘Helter Skelter’ and ‘Political Piggy’ on refrigerator doors with the blood of their victims.”

“They got
nahuals
in New York City too,” Diondega said.

“It’s a big city,” Kilidee said. “A real melting pot.”

Stalk sped to Tom Lenape’s cabin near the reservation border. He knew of Stanley Gaskosada’s illegal activities because he had witnessed a truck dump the garbage from Tom’s place. But he no longer cared about Gaskosado or whether Diondega was on his payroll.