The Frenzy Way (27 page)

Mace crossed his legs. “We ran the plan through the chief of departments office.”

“Oh, blame it on me,” Chiles said. “If you hadn’t—”

“I’m not blaming Detective Lane’s murder on anyone but the perp,” Mace said. “I’m just pointing out that we followed proper procedure
and
went through proper channels on this.”

“How very fucking
proper
of you.”

“There was no way for any of us to know—”

“That the same thing would happen to Lane that happened to the previous three vics?” Stokes turned from the window. “Why the hell didn’t you think that? Our body count
doubled
last night!”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” Mace said in an even tone as his neck grew hot. Tired from lack of sleep, his body protested yet another day without exercise. He hadn’t even gone home to shower. “I was there. I saw the remains of all three bodies. Did you?”

Stokes’s features drew back into a tight mask. “Spare me your macho TV cop rhetoric—”

Dunegan raised one hand, signaling silence, but his eyes remained focused on Mace. “All right.
Enough.
There’s plenty of blame to go around. The question is, where do we go from here? This is the biggest media story in the country right now.”

“As of last night, I’m the primary on this case,” Mace said. Feeling responsible for Patty’s murder, he had vowed to catch her killer.

Dunegan glanced at Hackley. “Dennis?”

“Tony’s the man for the job,” Hackley said. “He’s got my complete support.”

I bet I do
, Mace thought. He felt the target on his back growing larger by the second. His closest supporters had lined up behind him and seemed poised to push him over the edge of a cliff.

Stokes smiled. “Finally, a little marquee value. A famous face toidentify with this case. ‘Tony Mace, the hero who brought down the Full Moon Killer, sets his sights on the Manhattan Werewolf. News at eleven.’ It will be an honor to have you standing at that podium with me, Tony. But you can leave my name out of
this
book.”

Mace ignored the comment.

“What I want to know is what we’re doing to apprehend this disturbed individual.” Dunegan scanned the faces in the room. “We are in agreement that we’re in pursuit of a human being, right?”

Someone offered a nervous chuckle.

Stokes said, “Tell us your plan, Tony.”

Mace eyed each man in the room. “We have more than enough blood for genetic testing, and we lifted clean fingerprints from Dr. Santana’s office. They match the prints on the transit card we found in Lane’s vehicle. If our man has a record, we’ll score a positive match. So far, we’ve got nothing on that front. The video feed of Patty’s—Detective Lane’s—murder is inconclusive, but it will enable one of our artists in Imaging to create a reasonably close portrait. The tracks at the homicide scenes prove that last night’s murders were all committed by a single unknown subject.”

Dunegan’s eyebrows came together. “How is that possible?”

Before Mace could answer, Hackley spoke up. “Who knows? Remember PCP? Maybe prolonged abuse of steroids. That would explain the anger and strength.”

“But not the fixation on werewolves,” Stokes said.

“So he’s crazy. Isn’t that much obvious?”

“How many witnesses are we looking at this time?” Dunegan said.

“We’ve had more than thirty reports from people who claim they were in Astor Place last night and saw this thing,” Mace said. “And another forty from people on subway station platforms between Astor and 181st street. With more coming in.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“They all say they saw the same thing: a big, black animal running on all fours.”

“Fuck us.”

“The good news is that this thing is so fast no one had time to take any photos or videos of it.”

Dunegan’s face tightened. “These witnesses claim they saw some kind of animal, and you just called it ‘a thing.’ Yet you agree that we’re hunting a man. How do you reconcile these different points of view?”

“I don’t.” Mace held Dunegan’s gaze. “I can’t.”

Stokes said, “You’ll have to do better than that. You utter those words on TV and we’re cooked.”

“The footprints in Santana’s house are those of a biped, not a four-legged animal. The bloody message in Santana’s house was written by a human hand. The video was shot in night vision, with wide-angle distortion, but it’s plain that the perp’s a Caucasian male with short dark hair who stands six feet or taller.”

Dunegan said, “Then how do we qualify these witness claims?”

“With six murders, an elaborate hoax is out,” Hackley said. “Mass hysteria?”

Stokes gesticulated. “Eighty-three witnesses and counting. Do you know how many people
they’ll
tell? We’ll have
real
mass hysteria by the end of the day if we don’t clamp down on this before it gets any bigger. I don’t think I have to underscore for anyone in this room that a lot of careers are now at stake over this.”

Mace had grown tired of hearing that. “The guys in Imaging are working the frames right now to give us a portrait we can disseminate to the press. I’d call that a pretty significant lead. We also have audio from last night. By six o’clock tonight everyone in this city will know what our boy looks and sounds like.” Even as he spoke these words, he recalled the snarling sounds during Patty’s murder.

“Thank God for that,” Hackley said with pronounced relief.

“I’m encouraged,” Dunegan said. “Anything you need, Tony, just say the word. Manpower, media, extra support, you name it. This department is behind you 100 percent.”

That doesn’t make me feel better
, Mace thought. “What about this tribal policeman?” Stokes said. “New York One reported that we have a suspect in custody.”

“He’s not a suspect,” Mace said. “Just an interested party.”

“What’s his interest?”

“As far as I can tell, he believes in werewolves.” Blank faces stared back at him.

“I’d better get to the squad room,” he said, rising. As he left the office, he felt every eye in the room on his back.

“You know, there is nothing on earth like a lone wolf call—it makes you draw a little closer to the fire, dig a little deeper into your blanket, and shudder, knowing in your heart the many things you’ll never know.”

—Wyoming trapper Herbert Andrus during the Great Plains expansion

Angela awoke with the sunrise and saw that Stalk had not returned. Resisting the urge to worry—he was more than able to take care of himself—she walked barefoot to the kitchenette and filled one metal bowl with bottled water and another with ground beef. Carrying the bowls to the steel door, she saw that Stalk had left several metal cases on the living room floor. She unlocked the door with a skeleton key and entered the second bedroom, which was more like a small storage room, but she had managed to fit a cot in there.

Her eyes settled on Angus, who lay sprawled on the floor as usual, but she froze in her tracks. He had stopped breathing. Setting the bowls on the cot, she kneeled beside the still figure and ran one handthrough the once great Wolf’s thick gray fur. Tears welled in her eyes, which she squeezed shut, her chest swelling. She remained there for several minutes, then returned to the living room, where she picked up her cell phone and called Gabriel, her oldest brother.

“Angus is dead,” she said in a controlled voice. “You and Raphael have to come get his body so I can open the shop.”

Climbing the half flight of concrete steps that led to the sidewalk, Angela considered closing Synful Reading for the day. After all, her father had started the business, and maybe she and her brothers could comfort each other. But she knew better: relations between them had been strained for several years, ever since they had discovered her relationship with Stalk. So she unlocked the padlocks on the security gate that protected the storefront, raised it, and unlocked the door.

Inside, she keyed in her alarm’s keypad security code, then closed and locked the door behind her. In the back of the shop, she flipped the breaker switches that turned on the overhead lights. Then she switched on the small fountain nestled on one side of the store and the cash register. Although there was a safe in the office, she left a two-hundred dollar bank in the cash drawer overnight. As she double counted the drawer, she heard a light rapping on the glass door.

Damn it.
She hated when customers arrived early and expected her to open just for them. But a glance at the clock beside the register reminded her that she was running late this morning. Wishing she had stayed home after all, she circled the counter and unlocked the front door. A heavyset bald man with thick lips like a fish stood there.

“Good morning, Joel,” Angela said.

“I came at nine but you weren’t open,” the regular said, entering.

“I’m sorry. I’m behind schedule. Personal business.” She tried to block out his foul cologne, but there was no avoiding it.

“You should get some help here. That way you’d have more time for yourself.”

She returned to the safety of the checkout counter. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She had thought of hiring a part-time worker ever since her father had retired, but that simply wasn’t feasible from an economic standpoint. The landlord had recently doubled their rent, imperiling the shop’s future.

“That was crazy last night, wasn’t it?”

Angela knew from experience that it was useless to try to avoid conversation with Joel. “Yes, it was.” Thinking of the news reports she had seen on TV made her worry about Stalk again.
Stop it. He’s not your concern. You have bigger worries.

The bell over the door jingled, and another customer entered.

“I wonder when the police will catch him.” Joel stood there, waiting for her reply as the newcomer moved down the aisle.

“I don’t know,” Angela said.

“Do you believe it’s a werewolf?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you?”

It was like dealing with a child, not a fifty-year-old man. Joel still lived at home with his mother, which Angela knew because he had brought his mother to the shop more than once. “Because I don’t believe in werewolves.”

“Why not?”

“Because they don’t exist.”

“You sell books about them, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. I also sell books about witches and demons, and I don’t believe in them, either.”

“I do. I believe in them.” Smiling, he turned to browse the store even though he knew the inventory as well as she did.

I know you do
, Angela thought.

A few minutes later, the other customer came up to the counter.

He wore his dark hair slicked back, and Angela’s heart skipped a beat when she saw his nostrils flare at her.
One of us.
“Can I help you?”

The man smiled, his brown eyes staring into hers. “I hope so. Last week I saw a book in here that I wanted, but I didn’t have enough money to buy it. I do now, and I can’t find the book.”

He’s lying.
Although he seemed familiar to her, she had never seen him in the store before. “What book are you looking for?”

“Transmogrification in Native American Mythology.”

Of course.
“I’m sorry. We’ve just sold out of that.”

He held her gaze. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Ghoulish fascination, right? I can’t find it anywhere in the city.”

Angela smiled in response. It’s him. It has to be him.

“Perhaps you have a store copy lying around somewhere?”

“I did, but I’m afraid I gave it to another gentleman yesterday.”

Something stirred in the man’s eyes. Anger? Or just curiosity? “Do you happen to have his name or address? I’d be happy to buy it from him.”

“No,” Angela said, even though Captain Mace’s business card lay right before her next to the cash register. “I’m afraid we don’t keep records on our customers. Would you like me to order you a copy of the book, Mr.—?”

“No, that won’t work. I’m anxious to read it now.”

“Perhaps if you left
your
name …”

“I don’t think so.” His smile widened, revealing sharp white teeth, and he turned on one heel and strode from the store.